The Ministry of the Interior has completed the approach of all ETA prisoners to the Basque Country and Navarra, putting an end five years later to the dispersal of ETA members through prisons in Spain, once this Friday it has authorized the transfer of Irantzu Gallastegi Sodupe, Amaia , and four other ETA members. The dispersal policy of ETA prisoners began in 1989 under the government of Felipe González.
As reported by Penitentiary Institutions, among the approaches approved to go to prisons in the Basque Country is Irantzu Gallastegi Sodupe, alias Amaia, a partner of Francisco Javier García Gaztelu, Txapote, one of the former ETA leaders with the highest number of crimes. The two are serving sentences for the murder of PP councilor Miguel Ángel Blanco, among other attacks.
The other four ETA members for whom the rapprochement has been approved are Gregorio Escudero Balerdi, Asier Borrero Toribio, Garikoitz Etxeberria Goikoetxea and Faustino Marcos Álvarez.
In this way, Natividad Jáuregui is the only ETA member of the 176 imprisoned in Spain who has not been transferred, since after her extradition from Belgium she has a pending case and is in preventive detention in Madrid. Another ETA member, Jon Gurtubay, was released a few days ago after serving his sentence.
The leader of Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, has made an appearance in which he has valued the end of the dispersal policy. “It is a day of joy”, has proclaimed the nationalist leader. “A stage is closing”, he stated, sending a message of support to the relatives and friends of what he has called “Basque political prisoners”.
The approaches of prisoners began in 2018, with the arrival of Pedro Sánchez to the Government and the appointment of Fernando Grande-Marlaska as Minister of the Interior, who maintains that what has been done is to comply with the prison legislation once ETA was defeated.
At present, according to data from the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT), there are 164 convicted for their links to ETA terrorism in prisons in the Basque Country and another 11 in Navarra.
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