Zapatero Betrays Ibarretxe

Away from home while in Mexico on an official visit, the Basque Autonomous Community's Prime Minister Juan José Ibarretxe just got news that the Basque-phobe Fernando Savater has succeeded in getting him and a few other Basque politicians into trouble.

Acting as as mercenary for José Luis Rodríguez (just like he did for José María Aznar), Savater delivered one more blow to the Peace Process in the Basque Country. As a consequence of a demand by his Ermua's Forum, a judge decided that Ibarretxe from the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), Patxi López and Rodolfo Ares from the PSOE and eight members of Batasuna should be incarcerated for their meetings held as part of the negotiations during the same Peace Process that Zapatero torpedoed.

Here you have the note appeared at EITb:

Politics

For meeting Batasuna leaders

Basque President Ibarretxe to stand trial

10/30/2007

Senior members of the Basque socialist party López and Ares will also stand trial, as well as Batasuna members Otegi, Barrena, Petrikorena, Dañobeitia, and Etxeberria. The eight face possible charges of disobedience.

Basque President Juan José Ibarretxe and senior members of the Basque socialist party Patxi López and Rodolfo Ares will stand trial for meeting members of the outlawed Basque party Batasuna, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Senior members of Batasuna Arnaldo Otegi, Rufi Etxeberria, Juan José Petrikorena, Pernando Barrena and Olatz Dañobeitia will also stand trial for the same meetings.

Roberto Saiz, an investigating magistrate at the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque country, said that Basque president Juan Jose Ibarretxe and the two Socialists, Patxi Lopez and Rodolfo Ares, may have committed a crime by meeting with Batasuna leaders because the Spanish Supreme Court declared Batasuna illegal in 2003.

Lopez and Ares met with Batasuna leaders publicly last July. Ibarretxe did so in April 2006 and January 2007.

Batasuna was outlawed in 2003 for refusing to denounce violence. The law of Political Parties, a specially drawn up law in Spain, insists all parties must denounce violence.

The eight politicians face possible charges of disobedience.

Under Spanish law, private parties can ask courts to bring criminal charges and that is what happened in this case. Two activist groups in the Basque Country that opposed Zapatero's peace talks with ETA, the Ermua Forum and Dignity and Justice, asked the Basque Country's highest court to go after Ibarretxe, Lopez and Ares for meeting with Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi and others.

Prosecutors had said they saw no evidence of a crime, and that the court could not act just at the request of private parties. But Saiz rejected this argument, saying he could order a trial even though prosecutors representing the state were opposed.

This is just another example of how twisted and morally corrupt is the Spanish political class. It is also a reminder to Ibarretxe that Rome does not pay traitors for Zapatero and Savater are now using against him the same Law of Political Parties for which Ibarretxe had his Minister of the Interior Xabier Balza unleashing its violent regional police against peaceful demonstrators time and again.

And Spain brags itself of being a democratic state, what a sham.

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