Otegi says the state has “failed” in its attempt to “stop ETA violence from disappearing”

The general coordinator of EH Bildu, Arnaldo Otegihas reported that to be the case Bateragun is part of the Legal Affairs (legal prosecution) against the nationalist left and that the state wants to “prevent ETA’s armed violence from disappearing from the political balance of this country.”

Otegi has assured that “we are dealing with a story of Legal Affairs and we face defeat. The authors of this persecution by the judiciary and the police have devised a legalization of politics to achieve our neutralization and prevent a change of scenario, but they have failed and we are happy with that.”

Otegi, together with others convicted in the Bateragune case, Miren Zabaleta, Arkaitz Rodríguez and Rafa Díez, appeared at a press conference in San Sebastián after the Constitutional Court protected them and rejected the repetition of the trial to which they were subjected because it would violate the right to effective judicial protection, as the same person cannot be tried twice for the same facts. Another defendant, Sonia Jacinto, was unable to attend the hearing.

In his speech, the leader of EH Bildu assured “with absolute rudeness” that the Bateragune case (reconstruction of the National Table of the outlawed Batasuna) was part of the state’s objective that “ETA’s armed violence should not be removed from the political equation would disappear.”

Moreover, he emphasized that it was yet another action in the “persecution” of the left Abertzale, which aimed to “create disorder within the Basque National Liberation Movement and cause splits”, with the aim of “neutralizing its political potential” . ‘This was a case of Legal Affairs with clear political objectives,” he assured.

However, he pointed out that it has been “a resounding failure” because “today the pro-independence left is the leading electoral political force in Euskal Herria.”