The Constitutional Court has upheld the appeal presented by the general coordinator of EH Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, against the decision of the Supreme Court to retry him for the Bateragune case after the sentence was annulled by order of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). ).
As court sources confirm to La Vanguardia, the decision was approved by seven votes in favor, from the progressive majority, and four against.
Otegi won the judicial battle against Spain and recognized that one of the judges of the National Court who tried him had acted in a partial manner. The leader of Bildu, who has already served a sentence for this, has now found himself in the position that the high court has annulled the previous trial and has ordered it to be repeated, but he does not want to sit on the bench again, once Europe has has proven him right.
The TC now rejects the high court’s argument that if it is not retried then the case remains without a sentence because it has been annulled. The argument of Otegi’s defense, considered by the majority of the body that defends the Magna Carta, is that once the ECtHR has ruled in favor of the violation of his rights, it is his decision whether he wants to face a trial again. for which he was convicted and has already served his sentence and that is why he appealed to the Constitutional Court.
The sentence, with Juan Carlos Campo as speaker, believes that Otegi is right. In his opinion, trying him again for this matter would be a violation of the right to effective judicial protection since it would violate the principle of ‘non bis in idem’, which prohibits trying the same person for the same facts.
The resolution opens the door for Otegi to claim compensation from the State for damages caused by his time in prison.
This matter comes from a decade ago, when in 2012 the National Court sentenced Otegi and the other defendants to sentences of between 6 years and 6 and a half years in prison for a crime of belonging to a terrorist organization. In his battle in Europe, Otegi managed to get the ECHR to recognize that the Court violated Article 6.1 of the European Convention, since it understood the “legitimate fear” of the accused of a lack of impartiality on the part of the court.
The reason was that one of the judges of the court that tried him was Ángela Murillo, who had previously tried Otegi in another case. In that oral hearing, Murillo asked Otegi if he condemned ETA and, given his refusal to offer an answer, the judge told him that she already knew that she was not going to answer him. The Supreme Court removed the judge, who served as president of the court, from the case, appreciating “prejudice” in her. The oral hearing was repeated and the former Batasuna spokesperson was acquitted in that procedure. However, Murillo met again with Otegi in another new procedure, which was the one that was later annulled by the ECtHR.
