The Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz, has included in the agenda of the Board of Prosecutors of the Chamber, which will be held on the 16th, an account of the statute of limitations for the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco. The thesis defended now by the maximum representative of the Public Ministry is that it is not possible to pronounce for the moment on the possible prescription of the facts. The attorney general adopts this new position after the National Court made it clear that it is premature to declare the cause prescribed.
EL MUNDO revealed on July 21 that the then prosecutor in the case, Vicente González Mota, resigned from taking charge of the case after his chief prosecutor, Jesús Alonso, received the “instruction” from the State Attorney General -then head of the Technical Secretary of Dolores Delgado – to consider the facts investigated as prescribed for ETA members Miguel Albisu Iriarte Mikel Antza, María Soledad Iparraguirre Anboto and Ignacio Miguel Gracia Arregui.
Prosecutor González Mota’s thesis was that the computation of the 20-year statute of limitations should start counting from the date of the arrest of those investigated, that is, October 3, 2004, instead of from the date of the murder. The reason is that the French authorities directed from that moment the procedure against those investigated as members of ETA. In this sense, the prosecutor maintained that the resolution of the French justice that precisely pointed out the participation of the defendants in the activity carried out by the terrorist group in recent years interrupted the prescription.
However, this legal position was discarded in one morning by García Ortiz and the chief prosecutor of the Court without even requesting a report on the matter from the prosecutor in the case. These events generated deep discomfort among the victims of terrorism.
So when being proposed for attorney general, García Ortiz promised in the Congress of Deputies to submit the debate on the statute of limitations to the discretion of the highest category prosecutors of the Prosecutor’s Office.
After a first attempt to take the case to the Board, it was decided to wait for the pronouncement on the prescription of the Criminal Chamber of the National Court after the filing of an appeal by ETA member Iñaki de Rentería.
Contrary to the criteria defended up to that moment by the attorney general, the court refused to declare the statute of limitations for the time being in an order where the Chamber explained that “given the importance of the issue raised (the prescription) cannot be removed from the prosecuting body in any of the decisions that it could adopt in this regard, even at higher instances”. In other words, it would be a matter that should be resolved by the court of the Hearing that holds the trial and even later in cassation by the Supreme Court itself.
After this decision, the attorney general will inform the prosecutors of the Chamber that “the pronouncement of the Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court on the prescription of the facts investigated in Summary 9/1997 followed before the Central Court of Instruction Number 6 of the of the National High Court will be determined at the appropriate procedural moment before the Criminal Chamber of the National High Court, once all the probative and documentary material that may help to form a conclusive thesis has been collected”.
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