osé Angel Altzuguren, alias Kotto, age 39, was suffering from a deep depression for which he was receiving medical treatment. He had recently obtained an early release from prison only to be rearrested and sent back to serve out his full time. That was on the 22nd of October.

At first he was sent to Iruñea (Pamplona) prison, in his home province of Navarre, but only six days later, in line with Spain's hated dispersal policy for Basqe prisoners, he was transferred from the Basque Country to Soria, in north-central Spain, where he was the only prisoner of his kind. On October 31 he was found dead in his cell.

Prison staff said they found Kotto's body at eight o'clock in the morning hanging from sheets that had been tied to the overhead heating pipes. Special court police visited the prison to look into his death and that of another social prisoner. Like Altzuguren, he too had hanged himself.

Kotto's body was taken by authorities to the local hospital for an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Relatives of the deceased, together with his lawyer, travelled to Soria but were not allowed to see the body there. It was sent to his native town of Bera, in northern Navarre, on the afternoon of the following day.

In Bera, José Angel Altzuguren's body was received in a funeral chapel in the Town Hall. The dead nationalist had served two terms as a member of the Bera town council. [For an account of the funeral, see Gara English Weekly, November 2.]

Altzuguren was imprisoned in 2001 together weith many in the abertzale (Basque nationalist) movement who suffer persecution through the Spanish courts, on charges of an offence called 'collaboration with an armed gang'. The court accused him of forming part of ETA's 'border apparatus' and sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison. Altzuguren was arrested in a joint operation between Spanish and French police together with seven other people in three different Basque provinces.

The prisoner complained of having receiving physical abuse from the police. He was imprisoned for almost four years, and released this year, on January 7th. Then, on October 22, he was rearrested and sent back to serve out the rest of his full term.

'Culprit'

Following the news on Monday, the streets of his native Bera, population 3,500, were lined with ikurrinas (Basque national flags) with a piece of black cloth added as a sign of mourning, while signs were posted around the village announcing the death of Kotto. From the early evening on, dozens of villagers started to gather in the town square.

Juan Mari Olano spoke to the crowd on behalf of the pro-amnesty movement, conveying his sympathies to Altzuguren's family and friends and the association of Basque nationalists in prison or exile. Olano also voiced severe criticism of the Spanish legal system:

'[Altzuguren] was imprisoned in the full knowledge that he was suffering a deep depression. Completion of the remaining part of his prison sentence could have been postponed, but instead, disregarding the medical reports, they took him to prison, and in Soria he was placed in isolation.'

In Olano's opinion, what has happened 'is a story of the closest you can get to an induced suicide'. Olano went on to say that the Spanish government is the culprit:

'Since the PSOE came to power, prison policy has become tougher and dispersal has increased. It looks like the prisoners are being utilized to exert pressure and enhance the party's political position.'

'Talk about peace and democratic solutions is not compatible with the maintenance of such a prison policy,' Olano charged, speaking in the name of the pro-amnesty movement. 'All the gestures of good will are unilateral. And now we have another death on our hands, provoked by the Spanish state.'