Prisoner Xabier Atristain has been released on parole
- Atristain, who has been imprisoned since December last year in third grade, has been serving his sentence at home since last March with the telematic control of his compliance.
His case has become popular in recent years because, like many other prisoners, the Prison Treatment Board has on several occasions granted him the third grade and which, appealed by the prosecutor, has been suspended by the Spanish National Court.
Atristain volunteered in 2010 at the police station in Biarritz after hearing the arrest warrant against him, according to Interior. A month later he was extradited to Spain and in detention he was forced by a lawyer of his own office, without the possibility of naming his. During his arrest, he reported torture and threats and, based on his statements, in the 2013 trial he was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
The prisoner brought his case to Strasbourg and in 2022 the European Court of Human Rights condemned Spain for not having been able to choose his lawyer in the detention incommunicado and having accepted a statement before a lawyer ex officio as proof of repression for Atristain. The release was provisionally released last February by order of the National Court, but the Supreme Court ordered his re-entry into prison on the grounds that more evidence of imprisonment had been included in the sentence and not only those cited by Strasbourg.
As for the dance of the degrees, what has happened to many Basque prisoners in recent years has happened to Atristain. In summer 2022, Martutene prison granted him the third grade, but the Central Court of Prison Surveillance, in view of the prosecutor's appeal, withdrew the third grade in October and returned him to prison. In November, the Martutene Treatment Commission ratified the third grade and in March 2023 it was approved by the Basque Government.
The prosecutor re-appealed the decision. On this occasion, the Prison Watch Tribunal did not accept the appeal, but the Criminal Chamber of the National Court did, therefore, accept it to prison. Finally, he was released on parole this Thursday.
What surprised you the most when you left jail? I've been asked many times in the last year and a half.
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Since we were transferred to Euskal Herria from the prisons of the Spanish State, in the prison of Zaballa we have found many deficiencies in the field of communication. We have fewer and shorter face-to-face contacts, we have had to make visits to the speaker in poor technical... [+]
