Interior admits that it does not try to collect civil liability from convicted ETA members

The Administration does not have open collection procedures opened by administrative means regarding the sentences handed down against those convicted of ETA who were presented on the lists by Bildu since 2011.. This is recognized by the Ministry of the Interior itself, responsible for the issuance of these files, in a letter sent to the National Court and to which EL MUNDO has had access.

For all intents and purposes, this fact means that the State, through the Ministry of the Interior, has not made any move to try to find out, first, if the ETA members pending payment of civil liability have income and if that income can be deducted. the part that is pending of the sentences. These responsibilities are advanced by the State so that the victims are not left unpaid and then it has to be in charge of following up with the convicted so that, as soon as they have income, they return the advance.

During recent years the Civil Guard has carried out a couple of operations on its own initiative on the income of former terrorists who served sentences. Once they leave prison and start working, their wages can be garnished, except for the interprofessional minimum wage.

It was the victims who discovered that candidates convicted of terrorism crimes had entered the EH Bildu lists. In fact, he specified that since 2011, 44 with this background had been included in successive electoral processes.. The complaint was against the “contaminated lists” in the 2015, 2016 and 2019 elections.

The “contaminated lists”

Dignity and Justice reported to the Attorney General's Office the “contaminated lists” that violated party legislation. This complaint caused a cascade effect that also led to the detection of candidates who had yet to comply with the disqualification from holding public office to which they were sentenced.

This movement of the victims also included the complaint of these events before the electoral boards of the Basque Country and the Central. The victims' procedures not only uncovered the disqualification of the candidates but also specified the data that was handled by the Prosecutor's Office to prevent those convicted of disqualification from running in the elections.

But the victims demanded more information from the State. They presented a letter to the common enforcement service of the National Court. They wanted to know not only the degree of compliance with the prison and the disqualifications, but also the point to which they had reached the payment of the civil responsibilities imposed on them by Justice.. And so, they asked to verify whether they had civil liability pending.

It was not a surprise for the victims to see that of those 44 initial candidates, there were a dozen who had not faced the payment of their responsibilities.. What was surprising was the literal nature of the letter sent to them by the common enforcement service of the National Court.. He attached the letter from the Ministry of the Interior on the 9th in which the State Security Administration stated: «In relation to the letter (…) in which information is requested regarding the collection procedures opened through administrative means for the claim of civil liability paid by the State against those convicted of terrorism crimes related to the annex to the aforementioned document, it is reported that, once the database of this unit has been reviewed, there is no collection procedure open in “administrative authority regarding the sentences handed down against those convicted in the files”. The person signing this letter is the general director of Support for Victims of Terrorism of the Ministry of the Interior.