The Prosecutor's Office confirms that "an organization imposes" the ETA members not to collaborate to clarify the murders

The Prosecutor's Office of the National Court confirms the existence of "an organization whatever it is called that imposes on ETA members" the conditions to accelerate their release through changes in prison grade granted by the Basque Government.

The coordinating prosecutor for Penitentiary Surveillance Carlos Bautista assures that this "organization" is the one that determines that "it is not necessary to take a step" in collaboration with the Justice and in the "express request" for forgiveness.

Almost 120 ETA prisoners are incarcerated in Basque prisons and, for months, a commission of

regularly visits the centers in Zaballa,

Almost 120 ETA members aspire to join the process promoted by the Basque Government to provide them with third degrees that will allow them to serve their last years of sentence in "semi-freedom".

The Basque Government has already granted 32 degree progressions in the last 13 months and the Prosecutor's Office has already appealed 21 of them.

The Penitentiary Surveillance Judge of the National Court has already revoked 6 of these 'semi-liberties', the last one granted to Joseba Arregi Erostarbe

who returned to prison last Monday eight months after being

.

Bautista has already participated in a conference organized by the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT) together with the judge and advisor to the Basque Government Jaime Tapia.

The meeting presented by the president of the AVT Maite Araluce analyzes "Justice and the Report of the victims of Terrorism as tools to delegitimize and not launder terrorism."

The coordinating prosecutor has defended that "there is nothing collaborative" within the group of ETA prisoners and that only the inmates of the so-called 'via Nanclares' did provide information to clarify the more than 375 murders that remain unpunished.

, Bautista has stressed in full controversy in Euskadi before the accusations of organizations such as Sare that tells the prosecutors to "twist" the legality to prevent the progressions of degree applied by the Basque Government.

Since 2018, the Government of Sánchez has brought most of the ETA prisoners to prisons in the Basque Country and Navarra -only 19 remain in the rest of Spain-, on October 1, 2021 the transfer of prisons to the Executive took place Basque and from that moment the progressions of third degree to the ETA members began.

An "individualized" strategy, as stressed by the advisor Tapia, which the Basque Government will continue to apply despite the "legal debate" it is having with the Prosecutor's Office and with the judges of the National Court.

The Minister of Justice Beatriz Artolazabal has publicly acknowledged that she "does not share" the criteria used in the court orders but Tapia, in front of Bautista, has assumed the prosecutor's theses and has come to ask him to analyze "with affection" the proposals for commissioning released by the ETA members who will continue to be proposed by the Basque Government.

Bautista, firm in his arguments, has recalled that collaboration with the authorities is part of both the Civil Code and the Organic Penitentiary Law and has used the criteria maintained in the records of the National Court to give importance to "repentance for the specific facts " and to the "express request for forgiveness" to grant these penitentiary benefits.

Bautista, in addition, has warned of the "hardness" of the dissenting votes in the files prepared by the Treatment Boards in which third degrees are granted and has recalled the importance of ETA members facing civil responsibility for their crimes , after they leave the prison.

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