Basque PP “doesn’t give a damn about sick ETA prisoners”

The president of the Basque Popular Party, Antonio Basagoiti, said on Sunday that his party “didn’t give a damn” about the situation of ETA prisoners who are suffering from illnesses.

Basagoiti made the comments after being asked by journalists about the possibility that the Basque radical abertzale left could begin a campaign in favor of granting release for ETA inmates who are suffering from illnesses, such as Iosu Uribetxeberría Bolinaga, a convicted kidnapper who may be freed given that he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

“We don’t give a damn about the situation of those prisoners,” the PP candidate for upcoming regional elections replied. “If they care about the prisoners, they should have thought about that before they killed 900 people and left thousands of others injured.”

The politician went on to say that “if they hadn’t murdered or kidnapped people, they wouldn’t be in prison in the first place.

“The important thing, and the thing that the PP is focusing on, is not the campaign about Batasuna prisoners, but what is of fundamental importance: that the Basque Country continues to be Spain after ETA, and that Spain continues to be Spain after ETA,” he said.

Thousands of people marched in San Sebastián on Saturday in favor of the release of Uribetxeberría, as well as 13 other ETA prisoners who are considered to be seriously ill.