Graffiti representing the logo of the Basque separatist group ETA in Oquendo, Spain on March 23, 2010 -

Rafa Rivas AFP

The Paris Court of Appeal on Wednesday refused to hand over to Spain a former Basque ETA official, Iratxe Sorzabal Diaz, whose confession on her involvement in an attack in 1996 could have been obtained under torture in police custody in 2001 in Madrid.

The Spanish authorities had "not responded with sufficient seriousness and rigor to the risk of violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights", which guarantees the right to a fair trial, justified the president. of the investigative chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal.

"Scenes of suffocation or electric shocks"

Spanish justice considers Iratxe Sorzabal Diaz, aged 49, as one of the main former officials of the Basque separatist organization ETA.

She is suspected of having participated in the "laying of an explosive device" in October 1996 in front of the Saint-Sebastien courthouse, facts for which she faces up to 20 years in prison and which had been claimed by the Basque separatist organization ETA.

During the debates on November 18, the public prosecutor said he was unfavorable to this European arrest warrant.

The Advocate General considered that the “keystone” of the Spanish request is police custody in March 2001, during which Iratxe Sorzabal Diaz confessed to his participation in various attacks which “can be considered as having been flawed ”.

Iratxe Sorzabal Diaz denounces “ill-treatment” based on “scenes of suffocation or electric shocks”, contested by Madrid, since his release from police custody in 2001.

A sentence in France until 2023

The Spanish justice also relied on another element supposedly to charge: a manuscript in Basque language, seized during a search in April 2002 by French police officers, in which the former leader of ETA would have confirmed the statements made during the famous police custody a year earlier.

But lawyers for Iratxe Sorzabal Diaz produced a new translation of this document, including a "forgotten" page, clarifying that it was not a confession but a testimony about what Iratxe Sorzabal Diaz felt was forced. to say during this custody.

In three previous cases, the Court of Cassation has already definitively agreed to hand over the ETA activist to the Spanish authorities.

Me Xantiana Cachenaut, lawyer for Iratxe Sorzabal Diaz, believes that given the new translation of the manuscript, these decisions should be re-examined.

Before any surrender to Spain, the native of Irun must still finish serving a sentence in France, until May 2023 according to her lawyer.

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