Following Audiencia Nacional judge Baltasar Garzon’s orders, the Spanish Policia Nacional arrested fourteen people in the Basque country on 19 and 19 November. They are all included within what the Home Office secretary Angel Acebes called “preventive arrests”, i.e. people are arrested not in order to determine their level of involvement in a given criminal activity, but in order to determine whether the crime has actually taken place. We are therefore talking about a stage prior to the commission of the crime.
After being held in police custody under incommunicado detention, in some cases for the maximum legal period of five days, they were taken before the judge in order to make their statements. After their appearance before the judge it was possible to ascertain that several of the detainees had suffered ill treatment during incommunicado detention.
The detainees’ lawyers then called a press conference where they denounced these events. These arrests are related to another two prior police operations in 2003, all of which are based upon a supposed list found in the possession of an alleged ETA activist. This list apparently includes the names of people who in the view of the armed organisation may be apt for recruitment. Therefore, they are not being accused of anything they have actually done, rather, the only reason for these arrests is that ETA believed these people to be adequate for future membership of the organisation. This amounts to criminalising a possible future event, “events that have not yet happened and of which there is no certainty they will actually happen”. The investigating judge, probably in order to try to reinforce his accusation, used arguments that do not constitute a crime in themselves, such as relating to Basque political prisoners, having stood for election for the political party Batasuna or having been members of other organisations that were later outlawed by the same judge. In this sense, the lawyers consider that there is no reason to impose the harshest preventive measure, i.e. remand in custody, upon the detainees. This measure “is becoming the rule, when it should be an exception”. They denounced these detainees having been sent to prison, as well as the previous arrest and imprisonment of other people for the same reason. Of the 69 people arrested in the so-called “preventive arrest” operations, 38 are in jail and 31 are free. Added to this, 21 of the detainees claimed having suffered ill treatment during incommunicado detention in police quarters.

The detainees and their current situation
In jail
Zuhaitz Gurrutxaga
Saioa Azua
Gaizka Azkarate
Ikerne Indakoetxea
Goizeder Anton
Eneko Gorostidi
Xabier Otaegi
Mikel Garaiondo
Maider Egiguren
Regina Maiztegi

Released on bail
Ruben Guelbenzu
Gaizka Garcia

Released without charges
David Brum
Enekoitz Oiartzabal