The Association Victims of Terrorism (AVT) has warned this Wednesday that the probability that the general coordinator of EH Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, will be lehendakari “is very high” and that, in parallel, the re-election of Pedro Sánchez as president of the Government may lead to the release of ETA prisoners because several “key laws” will be repealed.
Specifically, the AVT has cited the repeal of the reform of the Penal Code of 2003, which implies full compliance with sentences, and the law that makes it impossible for ETA prisoners to deduct sentences served in France. “All these repeals will allow the prisons to be gradually emptied,” he denounced in a thread on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
In addition, the victims’ association has recalled the elimination of the dispersal policy in the last legislature, which has made it easier for all ETA prisoners to be already in prisons in the Basque Country and Navarra, warning that they will now demand the “repeal of some key laws” .
The association has reacted in this way after Otegi said that he will be the candidate for Lehendakari in the next Basque regional elections if Bildu so decides. In addition, he assured that they aspire to win the Basque Government.
“The fact that he is running as a candidate does not surprise us. We have always been clear that, once his disqualification has been completed, this would be his intention,” the AVT pointed out. The group has added that “what really” worries them is that once Sánchez and the PSOE “have whitewashed Bildu, recognizing them not only as a valid political agent, but as partners to govern, the probability that he could become lehendakari she’s very tall”.
“The road map to empty the prisons set by the ETA environment, both by Bildu and by associations that defend prisoners, has always been very clear and we have been warning about it for months,” recalled the AVT.
In February 2022, he already denounced that the Government was willing to change Law 7/2014, which prevents ETA members from taking advantage of a 2008 European regulation to discount the years in prison if a sentence has already been served in another country of the Union European.
The victims’ association assures that they will remain “vigilant to prevent this from happening” and to demand full compliance with the sentences. “Not one day more, but not one day less either”, she has intervened.
