Madrid (EFE).- The National Court has postponed its decision on whether the attack against the mayor of the PP in Ermua (Vizcaya) Miguel Ángel Blanco in 1997 would have prescribed for any former head of ETA investigated, a matter of “transcendence” in the that there are “doubts” and “antagonistic and confronting positions”, some of which would point to a possible imprescriptibility of the crimes.
The court believes that this is not the procedural moment to give an answer to the prescription of the crimes invoked by one of the former leaders of the terrorist group investigated for this attack, Ignacio Miguel Gracia Arregui, Iñaki de Rentería, who requested with this argument that file the case against him.
The claim to prescribe the crime of Miguel Ángel Blanco is rejected
The fourth Criminal Section, in a car to which EFE had access this Tuesday, rejects his claim and keeps him charged along with three other former leaders of the gang for his alleged responsibility in the crime of the young Miguel Ángel Blanco, in line with the position of the Prosecutor’s Office, within which there were also discrepancies regarding the prescription, and accusations such as the victims’ association Dignidad y Justicia.
The Chamber, which makes an extensive review of the jurisprudence on the prescription, maintains that this decision must be made by the court in charge of prosecuting the facts in his case “in any of the decisions that he could adopt in this regard, even at higher instances”, either at the time of ruling on the conclusion of the summary “or even in the sentence that will be handed down in due course”.
Because at this “initial” moment, says the Chamber, the decision on the prescription “not only is not clear and transparent” in the terms required by the Supreme Court, “but quite the opposite, as there are antagonistic and conflicting positions.”
The court alludes, for example, to the “imprescriptibility of terrorist crimes” recognized in the 2015 reform of the Penal Code “provided that they had caused the death of a person” and to the “retroactive effectiveness” in cases like this.
The prescription of the crimes of this cause, object of debate
The magistrates recall in this sense that when the aforementioned reform came into force, the crime accused of Gracia Arregui had not yet prescribed (the term ended in 2017) and “this without taking into account the recommendations” that the European Parliament made in March 2022 when alluding to the consideration as crimes against humanity, and therefore “imprescriptible”, the unsolved murders of ETA.
But the “core of the discussion”, he says, should focus on the “legal nature” of the prescription and then “focus or not on the possibility of the retroactive application of the imprescriptibility of this type of crime” because, the court admits, ” There is no doubt” that other “contrary interpretations” are possible, given that “if we consider that we are dealing with a criminal law, its retroactive application would go against the prisoner, and it could not be applied, as it would be more detrimental to him”.
It also recalls that the victims’ association Dignidad y Justicia, which promoted the procedure against the former ETA leaders, supports the imprescriptibility of the facts regarding article 2.2 of the European Convention on the imprescriptibility of 1974 and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Rights and the Court itself. European Convention on Human Rights.
The possible prescription of the crimes in this case has been the subject of debate from the beginning and even the State Attorney General’s Office announced that it would address the matter in a meeting of public prosecutors, the highest category of the race.
In addition to Gracia Arregui, this case is also directed against Miguel Albisu Iriarte, Mikel Antza; his partner María Soledad Iparraguire, Anboto; and José Javier Arizcuren Ruiz, Kantauri.