He says that he had the command capacity to decide not to kidnap him and to avoid “the ultimate outcome”
The judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón, who has investigated the alleged responsibility of the ETA leadership in the kidnapping and murder in 1997 of the PP councilor of Ermua Miguel Ángel Blanco, has agreed to the prosecution of four leaders of the terrorist group consider that the requirements for mediated authorship are met by the domain of the organization.
This is stated in an order of more than 100 pages, to which Europa Press has had access, in which the chief magistrate of the Central Court of Instruction number 6 indicates that he is prosecuting the former members of the Executive Committee of ETA José Javier Arizcuren Ruiz, alias ‘ Kantauri’, Mikel Albisu Iriarte, ‘Mikel Antza’, María Soledad Iparraguirre, ‘Anboto’, and Ignacio de Gracia Arregui, ‘Iñaki de Rentería’.
The judge prosecutes the four for the crimes of kidnapping and terrorist murder with the aggravating factor of treachery, considering that the requirements of mediate authorship due to dominance of the organization are met. He understands that they could have prevented Blanco’s murder and did not do so, which shows “an unequivocal will in producing the result.”
García Castellón also imposes on the four the payment of a joint bail of 2 million euros with which to face the possible civil liabilities that could be imposed on them in the event of conviction.
In the resolution, the magistrate analyzes the actions of ETA since its beginnings in the 70s and explains that it is a “strongly hierarchical” terrorist organization in which a “rigid discipline” prevailed, with a vertical chain of command and “military” in which the orders issued from its Executive Committee reached the members of the operational commands of the terrorist organization to be carried out.
Each member of a command or any structure, the judge points out, “obeyed the orders transmitted to him by his liaison or direct manager because he knew that behind that order was the ‘Directorate’ of ETA, its Executive Committee.”
It was the core leadership of ETA that adopted, according to the magistrate, the strategic decisions of special and greatest relevance that the members of the commandos executed without objection. He adds that, in the event that any of the members of these commands did not agree with the orders or instructions received, he was replaced by another militant willing to comply with the instructions of the leading structure.
The judge, based on police reports, points out that in 1997 the gang deployed a “destabilization strategy” by which the leadership decided to commit terrorist actions against members of the Popular Party, the party that carried out government duties in Spain, ” using a new procedure: the kidnapping of a member of the aforementioned political party under the threat of his assassination if the Government did not agree to the demands that were made by the terrorist organization.”
He recalls that at that time the four defendants had “sufficient command and decision-making capacity over the terrorist activity of the organization to have been able to make the decision not to kidnap the victim, as well as to avoid the ultimate outcome of the kidnapping.” . And all because they could have given the Donosti Command “the express and concrete order to release” Miguel Ángel Blanco.
THE KIDNAPPING WAS A “COLLEGIATE” DECISION
The magistrate also considers it “unlikely” that a terrorist action like that “was carried out by an ETA commando without a prior decision and planning, as well as concrete and specific orders, emanating from the main management structure of ETA.”
For the magistrate, the decision to kidnap the Basque councilor required consensus and he adds that it was “adopted collectively by all members of the leadership.” “The scope, repercussion and consequences of a terrorist action like the one committed against Don Miguel Ángel Blanco Garrido required it,” he points out.
After this, the magistrate reviews the figure of each of the four defendants using a large amount of documentation seized from ETA that, according to the magistrate, would demonstrate that the defendants could have prevented the murder of the Ermua councilor.
BY OMISSION
The judge explains that the authorship of the kidnapping and murder is by omission since “they held (…) sufficient capacity for command and decision-making” to have been able to make the decision not to kidnap the victim and prevent the murder.
“Despite the multiple calls that, after the kidnapping of the victim, were made by the vast majority of Spanish civil society and the ruling political class at that time, the members of the ETA Executive Committee did not carry out any act to that the kidnapping ended (…) nor the death of the victim, evidencing an unequivocal will in producing the result,” he highlights.
García Castellón indicates that all the requirements of mediated authorship by domain of the organization are met, that is, “the existence of a hierarchy with strict discipline within an organization, in which a management body as mediated author exercises a power of command. about immediate fungible authors”.
The judge concludes his order by pointing out that he gives them 24 hours to provide that bond and agrees to take investigative statements from the four.
