Covite has denounced the granting of a new “fraudulent” third degree to ETA member Asier Arzalluz Goñi, convicted of several crimes, including … murder of José Luis López de Lacalle and the sending of a letter bomb to the former Antena 3 delegate in Euskadi Marisa Guerrero. For the group led by Consuelo Ordóñez, this new decision, just a week after article 100.2 granted to ‘Txeroki’, shows that the Basque Government’s penitentiary policy with ETA prisoners continues to advance “at full speed in the direction set by the nationalist left: making compliance with sentences more flexible without demanding the real repentance established by law to progress in grade.”
Covite has responded to the statements made yesterday by the Minister of Justice and Human Rights of the Basque Government, María Jesús San José, who insisted that these decisions are “completely legal.” “Of course they are legal,” said Ordóñez. «But with that same law the opposite decision could also be adopted. The law does not require granting third degrees, nor article 100.2, nor any other mechanism to make the enforcement of sentences more flexible. The law says that it may be granted, not that it must be granted. That’s the trap.” In this sense, the group of victims has stressed that the current legal system would allow these penitentiary benefits not to be granted, especially when there is no minimal gesture of real repentance or disassociation from the political and social framework of the Abertzale left, which continues to legitimize and glorify ETA’s crimes. “You should not reward those who have done nothing to deserve it with semi-freedom,” they have warned.
In his opinion, the problem does not lie in the existence of the norm, but in the interested interpretation of its key element: repentance. «This essential requirement that the law itself establishes to progress in grade is being deliberately emptied of content. Legality is formally complied with, but its purpose is perverted, which is to guarantee authentic and verifiable repentance, precisely to comply with the fundamental principle that inspires our penal system regarding the fulfillment of sentences: the reintegration of convicts. Only through sincere repentance for their crimes and the public delegitimization of terrorism can we believe in their reintegration. We have verified it in the past, the last time with the Vía Nanclares,” said Consuelo Ordóñez.
«If repentance were authentic, it would have visible consequences. But what we see every day demonstrates exactly the opposite: the nationalist left continues to consider the vast majority of ETA prisoners as ‘political prisoners’ and displaying them as if they were heroes,” denounced the president of Covite.
date: 2026-02-12 14:40:00
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