Six Sortu members will be tried for holding "welcome" acts to Basque prisoners
- The judge of the Spanish National Court, Manuel Carcía Castellón, will judge six people in the Welcome Case: Antton López Ruiz Kubati, Kai Saez de Egilaz, Pipe San Epifanio, Haimar Altuna, Oihana Garmendia and Oihana San Vicente. They are all members of Sortu.
According to Judge Manuel García Castellón, the six defendants organized over 120 acts of welcome to ex-prisoners between 2016 and 2020, accusing them of continuing crime of humiliation of victims and of exaltation of terrorism.
Haimar Altuna, Antton López Ruiz, Oihana San Vicente and Oihana Garmendia were arrested in January 2020 and Pipe San Epifanio and Kai Saez de Egilaz in July 2021. They were taken to the barracks of Intxaurrondo and La Salve, and at the hours they were released on charges.
The case was opened in 2018 on the occasion of a complaint by the victims association Dignity and Justice, and has since been on significant tours. In fact, Judge García Castellón closed the trial phase in October 2023, and it was announced last January that they were going to try the six defendants now mentioned.
Disputes
The general knot comes from the reopening of the investigation by the judge. The association Dignity and Justice and the PP presented García Castellón with a new report of the Civil Guard that reopened the instruction last January. The report collected several interviews from the Telegram social network of Sortu and the Citizen Network, about which the judge wanted to ask the well-known company for information.
However, the prosecutor of the National Court, Carlos García-Berro, resorted to the reopening of the investigation and denounced the claim of the private prosecution and the judge to prolong the litigation “bringing the lawsuit or taking it to a place far from the objectives of justice and the interests of the victims”.
Thus, last March the Criminal Chamber of the National Court of Appeal gave the prosecutor a decision and closed the investigation. For the Chamber, the Judge sent on 3 November 2023 the request for information to the company Telegram, but the report of the Civil Guard on which the request was based was February, so the request was “temporary”.
After all these clashes, the Third Criminal Chamber gives way to the oral session against Sortu members. Manuel García Castellón is the judge who leads to the Democratic Tsunami of Catalonia.
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