The prosecutor of the National Court Ángela Gómez-Rodulfo has maintained that in the trial for the murder of the senator and president of the PP of Aragón Manuel Giménez Abad in 2001 the authorship of the ETA members Mikel Garikoitz Carrera Sarobe has been accredited “without a doubt” , ‘Ata’, and Miren Itxaso Zaldua, ‘Sahatsa’. “They are the perpetrators and they acted on behalf of ETA”, the prosecutor has defended in the presentation of her final conclusions, after having maintained her request for 30 years in prison for both defendants for a crime of terrorist murder.
His defenses, on the contrary, have requested acquittal for lack of evidence, and Zaldua’s lawyer, shortly before the trial was scheduled for sentencing, has even asked the Chamber for his “immediate” release because it has been two years in pretrial detention without being able to prove his participation in this murder. The lawyer has also criticized that the “imprescriptibility” of ETA’s crimes has been decreed and has warned that this is not the best way to “advance”.
For the prosecutor, the authorship of both has been verified, as confirmed by the photographic recognition of various witnesses, including the victim’s son, Borja Giménez Larraz, who accompanied his father that day to the La Romareda stadium (Zaragoza) and witnessed his murder.
He was then 17 years old, and according to himself, and the prosecutor recalled, he came to meet the murderer’s gaze after “finishing off” his father with a third shot to the head when he fell to the ground, at which time he assured : “We saw each other’s faces perfectly”. At trial he identified Carrera Sarobe as the shooter without “any doubt.”
After the attack, the victim’s son also gave a description of the murderer that “has never changed”, highlighted the representative of the Public Ministry, who has pointed out that he has identified him mainly by “the look” although the defendant now has a shaved head and not long hair as he described her. In this regard, she has highlighted the “astonishing” resemblance of the robot portrait with the photo of Ata when he had long hair and that another of the protected witnesses who have identified Carrera Sarobe helped to elaborate.
Although he has admitted that the photographic examinations by the witnesses are not enough to “enervate” the presumption of innocence, he has defended the validity of these tests because they have been corroborated by expert police reports, prepared on the basis of “data objectives” such as the documents seized from ETA in France and which are known as “stamps”.
This documentation, including a handwritten letter from Zaldua, whose handwriting she herself has recognized and which she signs as Sahatsa, places the two defendants at the head of the Basajaun commando, to which this attack is attributed, and illustrates how both fled to France and settled there. integrated “into the military structure of ETA with responsibilities”
Regarding their late identification as the perpetrators of the murder, the prosecutor explained that in 2001, “despite the number of eyewitnesses”, the case had to be filed because the Security Forces were unaware of the existence of Ata and Sahatsa and of the command at the time. Basajaun.
It took years to detect them, during which there were several reopenings and archives of the case and the alleged responsibility of other ETA members such as David Pla was even investigated without result. It was not until 2008 when a photo of Carrera Sarobe of ETA member Asier Eceiza was intervened and they began to investigate his activity in ETA. De Zaldua was not known to belong to ETA until 2005 when she was arrested in France, and until 2019 the actions she had committed in Spain were not known.
Having access to all the documentation seized from the commandos in France, is when the Basajaun commando was learned, in which Ata has acknowledged having been integrated, although he has denied having participated in this murder. Zaldúa does not even admit that he belonged to said command and to try to prove that on the day of the attack neither of them was in Zaragoza, both have presented alibis.
One assures that he was in the French Basque Country at a party organized by the ikastolas of Iparralde and the other that he went to the cinema with his friends in Usurbil, and insistently said that he remembered what he did that day because he was “impressed” by the attack for his son to be present.
The prosecutor understands that the witnesses called to corroborate their exculpatory versions have incurred numerous contradictions and have not presented any evidence to prove their statements.
Only one movie ticket provided in a “surprising” way at the trial when Zaldua’s defense apparently had it in their possession since June 16, which, according to the prosecutor, is not understandable considering that the defendant is in prison preventive. She believes that by doing so she was trying to prevent her from having time to present exculpatory evidence, as it is “easy” to buy lots of old movie tickets online.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
