A 22-year-old was found dead on Tuesday, January 28 at 08:00 hours by officials in Zaballa prison. Though they told the on-call doctors, they couldn't do anything. He had no ‘evidence of violence’.

Today, the Basque Government has announced that another prisoner has been found dead in Martutene prison. The prisoner was in the ward, who was in a cell there because they were treating him with the pain he had in his body. When the prison guards come to open their cells, they find him dead. He was 57 years old and was in prison once.

A 22-year-old killed in Zaballa prison

The man was in prison since September 2020. He was not on the suicide prevention programme, as spokesman Bingen Zupiria explained, because they had not seen ‘signs’ for it.

The spokeswoman says she has taken the news "with surprise" and that the prison will give information and help to the family.

The Department of Security will initiate an investigation into what happened. The Department of Equality, Justice and Social Policies reports that the information has been provided as a ‘transparency test’, but will not give more details.

A few days ago, Salhaketa denounced the lack of "details" about the death of a prisoner in 2020. G.B. 67 years old in Zaballa. the inmate was transferred to Santiago de Vitoria hospital in April 2020 for a surgical intervention. He died two days later. The complaint considers that ‘the activity of the Ertzaintza has not been sufficiently controlled’.

According to BERRIA, in 2020 six prisoners died in Zaballa, compared to 130 in the Spanish state:

7 April. A prisoner in Zaballa died at the hospital in Vitoria. According to the complaint, he was suffering from serious and incurable physical and mental illnesses, so he was going to leave prison shortly to be transferred to another institution. According to the Society, on April 8 he had to be intervened and transferred to the hospital. There he had some conflict with the nurses, and the Ertzaines intervened "strongly", as Salhaketa said. The prisoner suffered a heart attack.

17 July. A 23-year-old prisoner dies in prison.

12 September. A 32-year-old prisoner in Pamplona hangs himself. According to the Salhaketa association, he asked twice for the psychologist to be taken in vain. On 4 August he was transferred from Pamplona prison to Zaballa, where he was reported to be in the nursing ward of the Pamplona prison.

1 October. A 35-year-old Vitorian prisoner was declared dead.

Last week of October. A woman with a mental illness appears dead in her cell. According to Salhaketa, I needed him free because he was diagnosed with serious pathologies, but they did not give him room anywhere for the patients. This is essential if he is to be released from prison.

25 December. The body of a man about 50 years old appears in the fifth module of the jail.