[catalonia-europa] Spanish repression against Basque Patriots: Defendants claim trial is political

Spanish repression agaisnt Basque Patriots: Defendants claim trial
is political
Defendants claim trial is political and refuse to answer questions
from the prosecution
Today is the first day of the macro-trial against the Basque
independence movement: Case 18/98, organised by Spanish judge
Baltasar Garzón. The first defendant called to declare this morning,
Txente Askasibar, denounced the trial as political and said he would
not answer the prosecutor's questions.

MADRID
Askasibar refused to answer the questions of both the public
prosecutor and the private accusations from a right-wing pressure
group called AVT (the Association of Victims of Terrorism), saying
he would only respond to the defence attorneys' questions.

The public prosecutor, who is asking the court to sentence this
defendant to 15 years in prison for what Spanish law
calls 'membership of an armed organisation', nevertheless proceeded
to read out his list of 94 questions for Askasibar.

Defence lawyers asked for a delay of the hearing until formal
irregularities in the proceedings had been corrected and all the
documentary evidence was present in the courtroom. But the court
overruled these objections and ordered the trial to proceed.

At the end of the morning session, the court was adjourned until
this afternoon.

Coaches

It was nearly 10:30 a.m. when the first day of trial began in the
Third Section of the Criminal Court, in the 'Audiencia Nacional'.
This is the court in Madrid that deals with cases that cannot be
dealt with at a local level.

Shortly earlier, the defendants, 59 in number, arrived from Euskal
Herria in several coaches, in the company of their friends, family
and a large number of Basque public personalities, all of whom had
come to give the accusees their support.

Joxe Mari Olarra, the first of the accused to go through security at
Casa de Campo, where the massive trial is to take place, showed his
Euskal Herria Identity Card (EHNA) for identification. Since this is
not officially recognised, police used Olarra's police file as a
form of identification, and allowed him to proceed to the courtroom.

That procedure was repeated for each of the defendants, one by one.
Every defendant wore a similar shirt bearing words
proclaiming: '18/98: Support civil and political rights!'

The 18/98+ Platform, which was organised in the Basque Country to
support those charged in this political witch hunt and to raise
public awareness on the issue, had planned a press conference this
morning in front of the courthouse, but the Spanish police prevented
it from going ahead. But eventually the press conference did take
place.

Members of the platform declared that the trial is
legally 'untenable'. They also announced simultaneous
demonstrations of protest this Saturday in five major Basque cities.

'This trial should never have started. It is nonsense,' said Roberto
Etxezarreta, spokesman for the 18/98+ group. 'The right thing to do,
in these new times when a more receptive disposition has been
announced by the Spanish government, if there is any real intention
to usher in a more democratic period following the dark era of
Aznar's government, would be simply to declare the case closed.'

'We call for the discontinuation of these trials in the belief that
they imply a violation of basic rights and a collective attack on
Basques who defend their people's right to defend their future,' he
said.

Of the numerous representatives of Basque political, social and
trade-union organisations who accompanied the families and friends
of the accused to Madrid to show their solidarity, many were unable
to get in to the Casa de Campo courtroom owing to the lack of space.

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