JUSTICE-SPAIN: First ‘Dirty War’ Trial Ends, 10 Days Till Verdict

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jul 14 1998 (IPS) - The institution of legal proceedings in the first high-level trial in Spain on the “dirty war” against the outlawed Basque separatist group ETA waged under the socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez ended Tuesday.

The Supreme Court now has 10 days to hand down a verdict, which will set a precedent and to a large extent mark the direction to be taken by the rest of the trials in process.

From December 1983 to December 1989 more than 40 bombings and kidnappings were carried out, mainly in the south of France, with a death toll of at least 28.

While Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups (GALs) claimed responsibility, the prosecutor accused a former minister, secretary of state security, leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) and high-level police chiefs of the attacks.

The trial whose legal proceedings ended Tuesday considered the first case, the kidnapping of Segundo Marey, a French citizen who was abducted in December 1983 in the south of France, in a case of mistaken identity, when he was confused with a leader of ETA.

The prosecutor is asking for a total of 178 years in prison for the 12 indictees, 10 of whom have confessed. Only two – former interior minister Jose Barrionuevo and former secretary of state security Rafael Vera – deny any responsibility.

The court, however, has damning evidence and testimony against Barrionuevo and Vera – including the confessions of the other 10 defendants.

But the judges must also determine whether the statute of limitations has already run out on the crimes in question. Spain’s laws establish two statutes of limitation for illegal detention or kidnapping – 15 years if conditions were set or ransom demanded for release of the victim, and 10 years if not.

The defence counsel of Vera and Barrionuevo asked for acquittal of all charges, but also argued that the statute of limitations had already run out for the crimes with which their clients were charged.

But Francisco Alvarez, one of the defendants who confessed, placed a telephone call to the Red Cross on Dec. 6, 1983 warning that Marey would be executed if four Spanish police officers in custody in France for a frustrated abduction attempt were not released within 48 hours.

Two days after the phone call, a French court ordered that the police officers be released.

Marey was freed Dec. 14, after remaining tied to a bed in an unheated house in the mountains, guarded by two police officers – who later confessed and also presented public apologies to the victim while testifying in court.

The PSOE, Spain’s main opposition party today, denies that it waged a dirty war, and claims the trial was the product of a scheme hatched by a group of journalists and the governing centre- right Popular Party (PP).

But former socialist deputy Juan Maria Bandres, a human rights attorney who defended opponents of General Francisco Franco during his 1939-76 dictatorship, said there was no doubt that the GALs “operated from the start with the impulse and approval of some part of the state apparatus” and “were financed with public funds.”