On November 14 a judge decreed that blows and insults do not constitute torture

A judge of the provincial court of Vitoria-Gasteiz argued that the blows and insults denounced by Asier Ortiz de Ginea cannot be considered as torture and so closed the case.
Ortiz de Ginea was arrested by the Spanish police on February 19, 2003 with an order from Audiencia Nacional judge Baltasar Garzon. He denounced having suffered ill treatment during the time he spent under incommunicado arrest in police quarters. In his testimony, he declared that as well as having suffered threats in the Olagibel police station, “they put me in a small room, they made me face the wall and crouch, meanwhile, a drunken policeman began hitting me”.

The judge decreed that this treatment by the police does not harm Ortiz de Ginea’s integrity and therefore it cannot be inferred that he suffered ill treatment.
On November 17, the Supreme Court confirmed a verdict of not-guilty because the injuries occurred during the arrest.

The Supreme Court has ruled against the appeal presented by Basque citizens Alfonso Sebastian and Sebas Lasa and has therefore confirmed the verdict of innocence given by the Gipuzkoa Court for the Guardia Civiles they accused of torture.
The ruling by the high court confirms that the injuries they both had following their detention on March 2, 1998 in Donostia, can be ascribed to the scuffle that took place at the time of arrest. The sentence states that both Lasa and Sebastian, “strongly resisted arrest” thereby causing a “harsh scuffle during their violent arrest”, and not during interrogation.

According to the ruling, once in police quarters in Madrid, the forensic doctor observed that Sebastian had injuries in his arms, while Lasa presented a bruise on his left shoulder. Nevertheless, according to the court, these injuries “cannot possibly correspond to the brutal events the claimants recounted: kicks, blows all over their bodies, attempts to suffocate them, electrode use… and can be perfectly explained by the harsh scuffle during their violent arrest”.

Behatokia has consistently denounced the lack of efficiency and absolute lack of will when it comes to investigating torture complaints. In these two specific cases, although the court finds corroborated facts and indubitable evidence of the existence of ill treatment, it prefers to consider, for various reasons, that the proven events are not a crime and thus afford impunity to a clearly illegitimate action by the Security Forces.