Would Otegi still be free?

On Friday the National High Court sentenced the abertzale (Basque separatist left) leader Arnaldo Otegi to 10 years' imprisonment, considering him to be a "member of ETA with the rank of leader." The logic of criminal law does not always coincide with that of politics, but if ETA had announced its dissolution, it is almost certain that Otegi would now be free in the street; it is also likely that he would be free had the abertzale left, or Otegi himself and his fellow defendants, publicly demanded in some credible manner the disappearance of ETA, and condemned its use of terrorist violence.

The ruling that sentences them to such heavy prison terms notes that "at the time of the events in question" it was glaringly conspicuous that the defendants had given no sign of any attitude that would indicate any real distancing from the aims of ETA. Does this time reference mean that later there have indeed been symptoms of distancing that have not been taken into consideration? This may be so, for in the three documents of the outlawed abertzale party Batasuna that the ruling considers, drafted between October 2009 and February 2010, it is admitted that there has been an evolution in that direction.

However, there is a thread that runs steadily through all the texts and statements: the refusal to condemn the lethal curriculum of ETA, and the central role accorded to the demand for negotiation with the state — which is not just an occasional demand, but rather a "tool" to be used persistently until the terrorists' final objectives are attained, according to the first of the three texts analysed.

Both aspects are certainly related. The abertzales do not condemn ETA, because they justify their change of strategy with the argument that the "armed struggle" has prevented the consolidation of the regional government system in the Basque Country; which makes it possible to negotiate, even today, a change in the framework of regional government, in exchange for a definitive cessation of violence.

The ruling can be appealed before the Supreme Court, but weighing against the success of an appeal is the fact that this Court's arguments against legalizing the abertzale coalition Bildu were similar to those now employed by the National High Court: that there is an ETA plan behind the tactical turn recently taken by the abertzale left; and that the withdrawal of violence into the background does not imply the abertzales' renunciation of the use of ETA's existence as a latent threat that would condition any negotiation.

Weighing in favor of a revision of the sentence would be the fact that 10 years is a long time, and the consideration that to take it as a given that Otegi is a member of ETA seems fairly hard to believe, and even contradictory. He has said and done several things that cannot have been agreeable to ETA, though it is true that his fellow party members have ceased to do or say such things as soon as they have seen their party legalized and themselves occupying public posts.