"Victims of justice" deny making ETA payment

Two sisters, Blanca Rosa and María Isabel Bruño Azpiroz, accused of paying 6,000 euros to ETA after receiving letters of extortion, denied in the High Court yesterday having handed over money to the terrorist group, claiming they were "victims of the justice system."

The sisters, who face five years in jail and a fine of 27,000 euros each if found guilty, said their father had received similar threats "in the 1980s" and that they had been victims of ETA extortion for 30 years. "It is humiliating that we are accused of being collaborators when we are victims of ETA. Victims of ETA extortion and now victims of justice," they said. They claimed they had lived in fear since their father, a former Basque Nationalist Party mayor of Usurbil, went public with the letters.

Prosecutor Vicente González Mota said "documented and expert proof shows that the payment was made voluntarily." ETA allegedly wrote a letter of thanks to the sisters, which was seized by police when Francisco Javier Peña, Thierry , the former leader of ETA, was arrested in 2008. González Mota defended the prosecution's accusation: "Nobody should have the fear of looking under their car and finding a bomb paid for by funds that have reached ETA."