"The victims ask for a retributive justice by which the penalty imposed on the offender is always proportional to the seriousness of the crime committed. They want a justice that is reparative in all that is repairable and, finally, the victims know that the reinsertive end of the penalty that The Constitution also resides in the deprivation of liberty. " Ángel Altuna, son of Basilio, killed by ETA in 1980, warned in 2010 at the Giménez Abad Foundation about temptations to reduce the punishment of terrorists once terrorism ceased. In an article entitled, In my name, no , Fernando, brother of Angel, denounced in 2016 another agreement of agreement with ETA leaders similar to the one just signed at the National Court with the lawyers of the band. None of these agreements between accusations and defendants meets the requirements that Altuna considered should guarantee justice to be considered as such and truly fair. Fernando committed suicide in 2017.

"Important in legal terms, but especially in terms of story." Thus the Association of Victims of Terrorism defined the recent ruling on the 47 lawyers of ETA after an agreement in accordance with the private accusations and the Prosecutor's Office. The AVT and the other accusation, Dignity and Justice, value that the defendants recognize that they complied with ETA's orders. However, the agreement of conformity demonstrates the dangerous inertia towards the relativization of the true magnitude of terrorism. Disrupted the terrorist campaign, is losing consciousness of its enormous human, political and legal implications. Hence, the functions of the penalty, the retributive justice proportional to the damage caused, its reparation, and the prevention of the crime, have been relegated to the detriment of that empty signifier that is the story.

The story to which some associations of victims and political parties appeal has become a tool with which true justice is denied, fabricating a memory that replaces history itself. It is evidenced by this agreement of conformity that belittles the exhaustive investigations of the Civil Guard incorporated into the procedure. In them the authentic history is credited and overwhelmingly documented: the subordination to ETA of the lawyers tried , their integration into ETA assuming their guidelines, and the role of terrorist leaders of several of them. The documents seized from the ETA lawyers already contain the admission of the terrorists that the accusations now mistakenly extol as a success. It is exemplified by one of the detailed reports of the Civil Guard: "That subordination of the 'Collective of Lawyers' to ETA is reaffirmed in later points of this document, when in the section 'Responsibilities' this group of lawyers is placed directly under the discipline of the 'Collective of Basque Political Prisoners-EPPK', an organization that, as stated repeatedly in Report No. 26/2013 of this Unit, is directed by the KT (Prison Front). "

The evidence collected by the Civil Guard is huge, as evidenced by the fact that the defendants have "conformed" with a lesser penalty for fear that the sentence would be more severe. ETA lawyers would not have "settled" with those slight penalties if they suspected insufficient evidence. The sentence itself supports the Civil Guard thesis endorsing the investigations that demonstrate the integration of lawyers in ETA and the degree of leader of several. That is why it disappoints that the accusations have been "conformed" with minor penalties for criminals accused of serious crimes such as those contained in the sentence: 1) 45 crimes of active participation in a terrorist organization of articles 571 and 572.2 of the Criminal Code in force at the time of the facts, two of them in the rank of leaders of articles 571 and 572.2 of the Criminal Code; 2) 19 continuing crimes of exaltation of art. 578 of the CP; 3) 5 crimes of breach of precautionary measure of article 468 Criminal Code; 4) 3 terrorist financing offenses of article 576 of the Criminal, article 576 bis of the Criminal Code at the time of the events; 5) 1 crime of collaboration with a terrorist organization of the current article 577 of the Criminal Code.

Given the seriousness of the crimes charged and the penalties initially requested, insufficient compensation means the redundant and tactical admission of terrorists of facts widely documented by the Civil Guard now, but also by the Police and the CNI throughout history. Already in 2003 the National Intelligence Center analyzed in a reserved note the role of the ETA lawyers. Lawyers "with notable prominence" intervened to "control" the "generalized crisis" caused by "the continuous police and judicial action on the framework of support for ETA", moving "in a threatening way the monitoring of the official line marked by ETA".

It is also insufficient to appeal, as the accusations do to justify their pact, to the internal dissensions that the admission of lawyers can generate by accepting a favor treatment denied to other prisoners. The sentence of conformity will generate discrepancies in the terrorist environment that, however, are irrelevant when it comes to justice. In addition, submission to terrorist discipline is common in an organization of violent fanatics who fear coercion and rejection of peers and superiors. Years ago, a terrorist criticized the political representatives of ETA who, nevertheless, organized their reception after being released: "When they release me, I plan to fix certain comments and certain actions against me from their positions as councilors ( ...) Do not see how much I want to throw myself in the face some shits to those who being on the street I had as friends and have not given signs of life all these years.The body asks me to catch the knife and make a bad pass, but I will hold back and just tell them a couple of things. " Another inmate criticized in 2012 the leaders of ETA recognizing that "in all decisions of the group of prisoners has never been agreed to one hundred percent." The prisoner explained that "Herrira", one of the instruments of the "prison front" together with the lawyers now tried, proposed a change of position received unevenly: "They said, this is over (...) and how The shutter has been closed. We are going to ask you to give us the same treatment a common prisoner has ...

Conformity agreements, a common procedural practice, acquire negative implications in terrorism trials. In the trial, a conflict of legitimacy is staged between those who attack the State and those who defend it. The "victimization narrative", as defined by Beatrice de Graaf, does not disappear with a pact that reveals a transaction between the Democrats and those who have violated the democratic system. Rather, it imposes another narrative: the use at the convenience of democratic guarantees that terrorists despise but from which they benefit. This negotiation is done by claiming a risk of acquittal, weakening the excellent work of police officers whose investigations find meager reward. This judicial arrangement with terrorists demotivates them , since it is proclaimed that the ETAs must collaborate with justice to clarify the hundreds of unsolved murders while de facto renouncing to demand it.

When accepting penalties that are not proportional to the crimes committed or reparative, the precedent of an unjust justice is set that can be used by other terrorists awaiting trial and fleeing abroad who wish to return. The conformance statement allows the application of a "late confession" mitigation that relativizes the damage caused by ETA, condemning the ETAs to light penalties that minimize the seriousness of being part of a terrorist organization guilty of the murder of hundreds of citizens. After the relentless accumulation of evidence by the Civil Guard, ETA lawyers, who continue to legitimize terrorism, have been provided with an interested and tactical admission of their activities to the service of the band with the sole purpose of avoiding jail . "We have already amortized our mistakes," ETA supporter José María Esparza has written. This sentence proves him right.

Rogelio Alonso is Professor of Political Science at the Rey Juan Carlos University and author of The Defeat of the Victor. The anti-terrorism policy of the end of ETA (Alliance).

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