Bildu leader to escort families of ETA inmates to town fiesta

Gipuzkoa provincial administrator Martín Garitano and other Bildu officials will attend Vitoria's annual pre-festival ceremony of the arrival of Celedón with the families of ETA prisoners.

This will be the second time in one week that the controversial Bildu leader has publicly shown his support for the demands of the families of the jailed Basque terrorists.

Bildu officials said in a statement that Garitano, along with Donostia-San Sebastián Mayor Juan Karlos Izagirre, also of Bildu, has been invited by town councilors representing a pro-independence coalition to the festivities that mark the opening of the annual fiestas in Vitoria.

Garitano's close relationship with family members of ETA inmates has raised eyebrows. Popular Party spokesman Esteban González Pons said Wednesday that "Bildu is showing its true colors."

"Bildu is ETA, and as time passes we are seeing it more clearly," he said.

On Monday, Garitano came out in support of some of the families' demands in Azpeitia during that town's annual festival. The provincial leader said that the government should release ETA prisoners who are sick or those who qualify for parole.