National Hearing Judge Manuel Garcia Castellon has indicted former ETA Executive Committee members Jose Javier Arizcuren Ruiz “Kantauri”, Miguel Albisu Iriarte “Mikel Antza”, Maria Soledad Iparraguire “Anboto” and Ignacio de Gracia Arregui, “Iñaki de Rentería,” for the kidnapping and murder of Ermua PP councilor Miguel Ángel Blanco in July
In an order, the magistrate prosecutes the four former members of the ETA leadership for crimes of kidnapping and terrorist murder with aggravating circumstances of treachery, considering that the requirements of mediate authorship due to dominance of the organization are met, since they could have prevented the murder. but they did not do it, which shows “an unequivocal will in producing the result.”
In addition, the head of the Sixth Central Court of Instruction imposes on the four defendants the payment of a joint and several bail of two million euros with which to face the possible civil liabilities that could be imposed on them in the event of conviction.
Throughout more than 100 pages, Judge Manuel García Castellón analyzes the actions of ETA since its beginnings in the 70s and explains that it is a highly hierarchical terrorist organization in which discipline prevailed, with a chain of command of type vertical 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 “Management” 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.
In this context, the order indicates that in 1997, within the framework of its “destabilization strategy”, the “Management” of ETA, its “Executive Committee”, decided to commit terrorist actions against members of the Popular Party, the party that He carried out government work 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.”
The magistrate considers it unlikely that the members of the Executive Committee of ETA would not have ordered the kidnapping of Miguel Ángel Blanco, “taking into account the way of acting of ETA in which its main management structure, its “Executive Committee”, was the body where were decided, planned, directed and authorized the terrorist actions committed by the ETA action commandos, it is considered unlikely that a terrorist action such as the one carried out against the Popular Party councilor in 1997, his kidnapping and subsequent murder, would be carried out by an ETA command without a prior decision and planning, as well as concrete and specific orders, emanating from the main management structure of ETA, its “Executive Committee”.
For the magistrate, the decision to kidnap the Basque councilor required the consensus of all members of the ETA leadership. “The decision to carry out the terrorist action against Mr. Blanco Garrido was not taken by a specific or isolated member of the “Executive Committee” of ETA, but rather required consensus and the making of a decision, adopted collectively, by all the members of the “Direction”. The scope, repercussion and consequences of a terrorist action such as the one committed against Mr. Miguel Ángel Blanco Garrido required it.”
The car includes the documents seized from ETA that would demonstrate, according to García Castellón, that the defendants could have prevented the murder of the Ermua councilor.
The judge explains that the authorship of the kidnapping and murder is by omission since “they held, as has been pointed out, sufficient command and decision-making capacity over the terrorist activity of the organization to have been able to make the decision not to kidnap to the victim, as if to avoid the ultimate outcome of the kidnapping by having been able to give the DONOSTI command of ETA the express and specific order to release Mr. Blanco Garrido and, despite this, they did not do so,” despite “civil society mobilizations.”
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 “Executive Committee” of ETA did not carry out any act. to end the kidnapping of Mr. Blanco Garrido (action committed by the members of the DONOSTI command following their guidelines) or the death of the victim, evidencing an unequivocal will in producing the result.”
For the instructor, therefore, 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 command power over immediate fungible authors, with high availability on the part of these subordinates – who will execute the actions ordered by the mediate author within the strategic line indicated by the organization – without the capacity for discussion and who will limit themselves to following orders.
