The judge disassociates Otegi from the kidnapping and murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco

The judge of the National Court (AN) Manuel García Castellón considers an “illusory” request to investigate Arnaldo Otegi, current general coordinator of EH Bildu, for the kidnapping and murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco in 1997, since “there is no evidence » that he participated in ETA’s decision to kill the PP councillor.

In an order this Tuesday to which Europa Press has had access, the judge rules out initiating an investigation regarding Otegi, as this news agency advanced at the end of July.

This is agreed by the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6, who rejects the proceedings requested by Dignity and Justice (DyJ), a victims’ association that asked the judge to inform them of the investigations carried out hours before the murder, given that the On July 11, 1997, with Blanco already kidnapped, the AN issued an order in which they agreed to urgently investigate Otegi, as well as intervene in his communications.

The association pointed out that “there is no record” in the case of any result of the proceedings ordered regarding whether Otegi had any role in Blanco’s death, since since then “nothing more has been known.”

García Castellón indicates in his order that the imputation “at this time” of “persons against whom the procedure has not been directed until now” is “illusory”, especially “when there is no indication of participation in the events of the person referred to” and that, furthermore, if there were, it would be “a prescribed liability.”

For the judge, this request seeks a “generic investigation” into Otegi, a “person on whom, at the time, no diligence should have been carried out given his status as a registered person” at the time, although he points out that “it could be justified at the time by the need to locate the finally assassinated councilor of Ermua».

Even so, he sees “predictable and reasonable to think that any result that the official letter sent to the Guipúzcoa Civil Guard Command number 513 would have generated, as recorded on page 126 of the summary, if there had been a result, it would have been put in the knowledge of the competent judicial body, ”says García Castellón in reference to the investigations already carried out.

The Prosecutor’s Office expresses itself in the same terms, which in a letter to the instructor, collected by Europa Press, understands that “the requested procedures, in the terms formulated, should not be accepted, because they do not meet the aforementioned characteristics.”

Dignity and Justice asked to re-analyze conversations intervened on July 12, 1997 with members of ETA, but the judge opposed it due to the technical difficulty of improving some recordings “inaudible in most of their content.” He only understands “some single words”, so he decides not to accept them “by ignoring the context” in which they were produced.

At the same time, the association mentioned a judicial statement by Miren Itziar Olaskoaga for an attack by the gang in Villajoyosa (Alicante). She, in her appearance, pointed to Otegi as one of those responsible for the ETA logistics apparatus together with his ex-husband, Ormaza Corral. And she suggested to the authorities that, looking at the area where Blanco’s kidnapping had taken place, they investigate Otegi, then a leader of Herri Batasuna.

cause reopened

It was last March when García Castellón agreed to resume the investigation into Blanco’s murder and did so after admitting a complaint filed by Dignidad y Justicia, which directed its accusation against the heads of the terrorist organization at the time of the murder: María Soledad Iparraguirre, alias ‘Anboto’; José Javier Arizcuren, ‘Kantauri’; Miguel Albisu, ‘Mikel Albisu’; Ignacio Miguel Gracia Arregui, ‘Iñaki de Rentería’; Juan Carlos Iglesias Chouzas, ‘Gaddafi’; and Asier Oyarzabal, ‘Baltza’.

The judge agreed to call the first three investigated and appreciated ex officio the prescription of the crimes for ‘Iñaki de Rentería’, a decision that both the Prosecutor’s Office and the PP and DyJ have asked him to reverse. For their part, ‘Mikel Antza’ and ‘Anboto’ refused to testify. ‘Kantauri’ is quoted on October 17.

It should be remembered that, in the case of Blanco’s murder, the First Criminal Section of the National Court already sentenced in 2006 to 50 years in prison the former ETA leader Francisco Javier García Gaztelu, ‘Txapote’, and his sentimental partner and member of ETA Irantzu Gallastegui Sodupe, ‘Amaia’, as perpetrators.

In its sentence, the court assured that ‘Txapote’ and ‘Amaia’ “planned and executed the kidnapping and subsequent murder, following the guidelines of the leadership of the terrorist organization ETA, whose most immediate objectives were the kidnapping of a councilor from the PP to demand in exchange for their release the approach of the prisoners of the gang to prisons in the Basque Country».