The agreement was reached last July between the company, the prosecutor’s office and the families of Alberto Sololuze and Joaquín Beltrán, and that of Durango. It has been in the hands of the Examining Court since then. Compensation for families is also agreed.

According to EiTB, “the agreement assumes that landfill managers were aware of the serious risks in the landfill. In fact, two days before the landslide occurred, the employers were informed of the cracks that were in the landfill, following a topographic survey. In addition to warning of the problem, the professionals who carried out the analysis advised the company managers to immediately suspend their work.”

The text of the agreement states that the head of the company, José Ignacio Barinaga, the manager Arrate Bilbao and the safety officer of the landfill, Juan Etxeberria, have acknowledged that they knew that the landfill was in danger and that, despite this, they “did nothing to prevent it, did not alert the workers, did not take extraordinary safety measures or suspended the activity”.

Zaldibar Argitu will continue to investigate

As soon as the agreement is known, the Zaldibar Argitu platform and the Charter of Social Rights of the Basque Country have stated that they fully respect the families' decision to reach an agreement: “They have been a very hard year and a half for them and they continue to suffer.”

At the same time, both associations have denounced the expulsion in July of the case as a popular indictment: "It is absolutely suspicious that there has been a joint exclusion of the case as a popular indictment and agreement with the prosecutor's office. If we were accepted as a popular accusation, we do not know what would happen, but in order to reach an agreement we have to talk to all the accusations and, being the popular accusation, we should have reached an agreement with us. They seem to have wanted to avoid it from the outset.”

They claim that they committed themselves to clarify what happened at Zaldibar and to clarify all their responsibilities, and that they will continue to do so “for real justice to be done”.