Bildu-Sortu, the formation that will take power in the capital of Navarra after the motion of censure agreed with the PSOE, has presented almost a hundred people convicted of crimes related to ETA on its electoral lists since 2011.
The Abertzale formation, heir to the political framework of ETA, announced yesterday a motion of censure against the current government team of the UPN city council, supported by the Navarrese socialists.
According to the information in the hands of the State Attorney General’s Office, there are specifically 89 candidates that Bildu included in its electoral lists, both in the Basque Country and in Navarra, convicted of terrorism crimes.
The Law on Parties establishes in its article 9.3 that a party can be outlawed when it presents on its lists candidates convicted of terrorism and has not publicly rejected terrorist aims or means.
Of those who had been directly convicted of blood crimes, their minutes were not finally collected, but they were elected because Bildu did not remove them from its lists, claiming that it had not had time after the complaint filed by the victims of terrorism.
The victims – specifically Dignity and Justice – denounced ‘the contaminated lists’ of Bildu/Sortu before the National Court and before the Prosecutor’s Office. And they provided names and surnames, elections they ran for, and convictions for terrorism.
The list was presented at the end of last May before the State Attorney General’s Office. To this day, the organization still directed by Álvaro García Ortiz, has not commented on the victims’ complaint.
And the first to appear on that list, which is in the possession of EL MUNDO, is Bildu’s own spokesperson, Maite Aizpurua, who ran as a candidate in the Usurbil elections in the 2011 municipal elections. She was convicted of advocating terrorism. . She is currently a deputy in the National Parliament.
In 2015, Bildu presented Juan María Babirondo on the Guipúzcoa list, for the Deba city council. In 1989 he was sentenced by the National Court to 29 years in prison for the murder of Colonel José María Picatoste. He was also sentenced to 124 years for his participation in the kidnapping of Lucio Aguinagalde and the murder of an Ertzaina.
Another candidate in Deba was Miguel Ángel Zarrabe, sentenced in 1992 by the Paris court to 8 years in prison for his relationship with ETA. In 2000 he was sentenced to another 24 years in prison for different terrorism crimes.
Egoitz Apaolaza appeared on Bildu’s lists in the 2015, 2019 and 2023 elections. He was convicted in 2016 for joining a terrorist organization.
Oier Lorente, candidate for San Sebastián in 2019, was sentenced to six years for the crime of integration into a terrorist organization, for the actions of kale borroka.
María Jesús Arriaga – candidate in 2019 and 2023 for Ordizia – was sentenced to 8 years for belonging to ETA’s Madrid command.
Ramón Aldasoro was convicted of throwing grenades at the Civil Guard barracks in Llodio (Álava), for the murder of General Luis Azcárraga and two national police officers: Antonio Gómez and Francisco Espina.
Another of those included in Bildu’s lists is Xabier Alegria, candidate in 2019, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for belonging to a terrorist organization at a leading level.
José Ceberio, candidate for Beasain, was convicted for his responsibility in ETA’s logistics apparatus. The candidate Mirem Aranzazu was convicted of covering up the murder of Enrique Cuesta, for collaborating in the murder of José María Latiegui.
Another of Bildu’s candidates, Asier Altuna, was convicted of carrying out surveillance to attack a PSE councilor.
And so, up to 89 names in the three Basque provinces and in Navarra. In their complaint to the Attorney General’s Office, to which there is still no response, the victims not only confirmed the legacy of ETA violence in the Bildu lists but also put on the table that several of them, with their prison sentences completed , they did not have their absolute disqualification extinguished. The National Court and the electoral boards were also informed of this anomaly, which corrected the situation.
Specifically, Dignity and Justice demanded that the Prosecutor’s Office “collect and analyze, not the criminal history sheets, but the sentencing settlements of each and every one of the candidates.”
