The Diplomat
In a report on the unsolved murders by the terrorist group ETA, the European Parliament yesterday called for the crimes to be investigated as crimes against humanity, but this was rejected by the PSOE, which called for this point to be deleted.
In the vote on amendments to the report of the Petitions Committee’s mission to investigate ETA’s unsolved crimes, the majority of groups voted in favour of suggesting that the competent institutions “exhaust the interpretative possibilities of criminal law, including the possible recognition of ETA’s terrorist crimes as crimes against humanity, even before 2004”.
The PSOE’s amendment, which called for this point to be removed, was thus defeated, given that, according to current legislation, crimes prior to 2004 cannot be considered crimes against humanity, reports Europa Press.
The report, which will be approved as a whole this Thursday, includes the proposals of MEPs who visited Spain last November and met with victims’ groups and members of the judiciary and security forces.
In addition, the text denounces the tributes to ETA prisoners, known as ‘ongi etorri’, and calls for the public glorification of convicted terrorists on their release from prison to be avoided because of the pain and secondary victimisation that this entails for victims of terrorism.
Thanks to Ciudadanos’ support for the PSOE’s amendment, the demand to the Spanish authorities that prison benefits for ETA prisoners be made conditional on collaborating with justice will be qualified.
Specifically, the final text will ask the Spanish legislature to “suggest” that, “by means of a legal modification”, those convicted of terrorism must collaborate in the resolution of the attacks in order to receive benefits.
This wording reduces the initial demand that the Spanish authorities guarantee that “the benefits and penitentiary treatment that can be granted to those convicted of terrorism be linked to their collaboration in the clarification of all attacks of which they are aware”.
Likewise, the majority of the parliamentary groups asked for the creation of a commission of jurists in charge of drawing up a detailed report on each of the files of the victims of ETA whose cases have not yet been resolved, in this case also with the rejection of the Socialist MEPs who proposed to suppress it in another amendment.
At the request of Orange MEP Maite Pagazaurtundua, the report will include a request to the National Court to report on the possible indictment of ETA leaders Garikoitz Aspiazu ‘Txeroki’, Mikel Carrera Sarobe ‘Ata’ and Aitzol Iriondo Yarza ‘Gurbitz’ for a crime against humanity.
A fortnight ago, the Audiencia Nacional decided to move forward with the case against the ETA leadership for crimes against humanity in all the murders committed since 2004 and asked the French authorities to hand over the former leaders of the terrorist group.
