"Igor is been murdered" prisoner's family

Big concerns around the Basque political prisoner's dead have been rised by the family and pro-independence movement after having access to the forensic act. It reveals that the body was lying on the bed and his hands were tided with skin laces. The first official version said that he was hanging from the window's cell and as his family highlighted he didn't have the permission to use such laces.

Last Saturday he was planning future events with his girlfriend such as having a new baby (he already had a 8 year-old child who was his biggest hope) and his 33rd birthday wich was gonna be next week. He even expressed concern about the times ahead suggesting that dirty war actions could happen in a desperate attempt to stop the process of political resolution of the conflict.

Nobody in the Basque Country believe that he committed suicide.

Batasuna denounced that this is been another killing provoked by the prison dispersal policy wich aims to break the Basque Political Prisoners Collective and wich bases are revenge and suffering infliction and the responsible are the Spanish government and PSOE party.

Yesterday evening hundreds of people took the streets in more than fifty cities and towns all around the Basque Country to protest against this murdering.

The Irish Basque Committees want to express their condolences to the family and comrades and their anger and rage after such a coward act committed by the Spanish authorities and want to call Irish people to be aware of future events organized in Ireland to protest against this political assassination.

ANOTHER BASQUE POLITICAL PRISONER KILLED BY SPANISH REPRESSION

Basque political prisoner Igor Angulo (Bilbao 1974) was found dead today hanging from his cell window in Cuenca Jail at more than 600 kilometers from the Basque Country. He was the only Basque political prisoner in Cuenca. Because of the Spanish dispersal policy before he was transferred to Cuenca in 2001 he was kept in six different jails all around Spain. He was locked in his cell for 18 hours a day. He was tortured when he was arrested in 1996.

He is the third Basque political prisoner to be found dead in his cell in the last year and we want to make clear to everybody that this is a consequence of the merciless and brutal Spanish and French governments' prison policy against Basques. More than 700 Basque political prisoners are kept in 80 prisons all around France and Spain suffering beatings, isolation, medicalmistreatingt, dispersal and denying of most basic rights likestuddingg, speaking in Basque...Etc.

If the Spanish and French governments are to be considered seriously about their aims towards a political resolution of the conflict they have to change radically their crudel policy against Basque political prisoners and stop treating them as political hostages.

leaflets for Protest

Judges adjourn 18/98 case for further two weeks

The lawyers have pointed out that they have not had time to go through the one hundred thousand pages that make up the 75/89 preliminary proceedings

During yesterday’s session in connection with the 18/98 Case the Spanish National Criminal Court took a decision once again to adjourn the trial. The Presiding Judge, Angela Murillo, took the decision in response to the requests made by the defence lawyers. On behalf of the defence counsel, Arantxa Zulueta requested a break of one month. But the panel of judges only agreed to adjourn the proceedings for two weeks and they warned the defence lawyers that it would be “the last time” the trial would be adjourned. So the trial in the 18/98 Case is set to resume on February 13.Yesterday’s session in the special courtroom set up in the Casa de Campo in Madrid began an hour behind schedule. When the trial was about to resume, Arantxa Zulueta pointed out that they were still facing the same problems in conducting their defence as three weeks ago. She recalled that the trial had also had to be adjourned on January 9. On that day the lawyers argued that the conditions for guaranteeing the right to defence did not exist and filed a complaint. At that time they told the bench that they had not had time to examine the 75/89 preliminary proceedings which had been kept sub judice until shortly before that moment. The defence counsel regards the preliminary proceedings as the basis of the charges brought against the indictees and that is why they need to be able to access the documents in order to conduct their defence properly. Seeing that there was no chance of this, they also announced on January 9 that they would be digging in their heels. The defence counsel’s decision got the backing of the Bar Association of the BAC-Basque Autonomous Community. The judges then decided to suspend the trial.Zulueta said during yesterday’s session that the decision meant that the judges recognised that the documents were essential for the defence to do its work. The lawyer argued that a three-week adjournment was insufficient to examine the documents; furthermore, she said, they had not had enough time even to have copies made of such a large number of documents. So she was telling the judges that the lawyers had still not been able to obtain all the documents pertaining to the preliminary proceedings.