Excmo. Mr. Mr. Jesús Alonso Cristóbal

Chief prosecutor of the national hearing

In Madrid, October 4, 2018

Sir:

A terrorist attack is more than a voluntary action to seriously injure or assassinate someone. Terrorism attentive not only to the life and dignity of the person, but also to a direct attack on the whole of society. Its main objective is to destroy the bases on which the rule of law is based, in the form of direct violation of the established order, and therefore, each individual is the victim of the terrorist scourge.

It is our own Social system, our way of life and the model of coexistence that we have freely and democratically given the goal to destroy. In the same way, the terror dynamites all those values on which one supports the coexistence between the people, by depriving these of reasons for which to build a better world every day.

Unfortunately, time has also become a unit of measure of crime. Each crime has its time: the time it is made and the time it is paid. Although it is not always fulfilled. When the one who does not pay on time, the crime reaches its expiration date, prescribes. Then there is only impunity and forgetfulness, the closure of a case that will have no trial, no guilt, no condemnation.

I knew it Kepa Pikabea, the militants who confessed to have killed Carlos Garcia Fernandez on October 7, 1980 in Eibar. The case is prescribed, so its revelation will no longer have criminal consequences.

A brief but graphical explanation of what constitutes, in practice, the prescription of a crime. : La cuenta atrás comienza cuando se comete el propio crimen y el cómputo solo se interrumpe cuando el proceso se dirige contra el autor. Cuestión aritmética.

La justificación prescriptiva se encuentra en el concepto de ‘seguridad jurídica’, figura que en un Estado de Derecho garantiza que no se pueda perseguir a nadie por unos hechos que cometió mucho tiempo atrás. “Con el paso del tiempo, las circunstancias que rodean al proceso penal se van modificando, de manera que los fines de la pena van perdiendo importancia, la personalidad del acusado va evolucionando e, incluso, las expectativas de la víctima se van diluyendo”, argumentan desde el Colegio de Abogados de Madrid.

José Miguel Ayllón, presidente de la Asociación Nacional de Víctimas de Delitos Violentos afirma, : “ La prescripción no refuerza la seguridad jurídica, sino que la destruye, favoreciendo la impunidad de los delincuentes.” Desde su punto de vista, la caducidad delictiva solo es “saludable cuando la Justicia es rápida y eficiente. Cuando es lenta, solo sirve para dar derechos” a los criminales y “genera indefensión en las víctimas”.

En España, todos los delitos tienen una fecha de prescripción, excepto los crímenes de lesa humanidad y genocidio, los delitos contra las personas y bienes protegidos en caso de conflicto armado y los delitos de terrorismo, si hubieren causado la muerte de una persona. Así lo recoge el artículo 131 del Código Penal.

El origen de la imprescriptibilidad de los crímenes contra la Humanidad y el genocidio está en la adhesión de España a diferentes Convenios Internacionales. En cuanto a los asesinatos terroristas, su carácter imprescriptible data de 2010, cuando se introdujo una reforma en el Código Penal que carece de carácter retroactivo. Así pues, quedan excluidas todas las muertes a manos de terroristas anteriores a esta fecha.

Resulta oportuno pues señalar que las atribuciones de la Fiscalía vienen recogidas en el artículo tercero de la Ley 50/1981, de 30 de diciembre, por la que se regula el Estatuto Orgánico del Ministerio Fiscal, y son:

1. Velar por que la función jurisdiccional se ejerza eficazmente conforme a las leyes y en los plazos y términos en ellas señalados, ejercitando, en su caso, las acciones, recursos y actuaciones pertinentes.
2. Ejercer cuantas funciones le atribuya la ley en defensa de la independencia de los jueces y tribunales.
3. Velar por el respeto de las instituciones constitucionales y de los derechos fundamentales y libertades públicas con cuantas actuaciones exija su defensa.
4. Ejercitar las acciones penales y civiles dimanantes de delitos y faltas u oponerse a las ejercitadas por otros, cuando proceda.
5. Intervenir en el proceso penal, instando de la autoridad judicial la adopción de las medidas cautelares que procedan y la práctica de las diligencias encaminadas al esclarecimiento de los hechos o instruyendo directamente el procedimiento en el ámbito de lo dispuesto en la Ley Orgánica reguladora de la Responsabilidad Penal de los Menores, pudiendo ordenar a la Policía Judicial aquellas diligencias que estime oportunas.
6. Tomar parte, en defensa de la legalidad y del interés público o social, en los procesos relativos al estado civil y en los demás que establezca la ley.
7. Intervenir en los procesos civiles que determine la ley cuando esté comprometido el interés social o cuando puedan afectar a personas menores, incapaces o desvalidas en tanto se provee de los mecanismos ordinarios de representación.
8. Mantener la integridad de la jurisdicción y competencia de los jueces y tribunales, promoviendo los conflictos de jurisdicción y, en su caso, las cuestiones de competencia que resulten procedentes, e intervenir en las promovidas por otros.
9. Velar por el cumplimiento de las resoluciones judiciales que afecten al interés público y social.
10. To ensure the procedural protection of victims and the protection of witnesses and experts by promoting the mechanisms envisaged to receive effective aid and assistance.
11. To intervene in the judicial proceedings of amparo as well as in the questions of unconstitutionality in the cases and form envisaged in the Organic Law of the Constitutional Court.
12. To appeal constitutional protection, as well as to intervene in the processes that the Constitutional Court knows in defense of the legality, in the manner in which the laws establish.
13. To exercise in the matter of criminal responsibility of minors the functions that entrusted him the specific legislation, having to orient his action to the satisfaction of the best interest of the minor.
14. To intervene in the assumptions and in the manner envisaged in the laws in the proceedings before the Court of Auditors. To defend, likewise, the legality in the contentious-administrative and labor processes that foresee their intervention.
15. Promote or, where appropriate, provide the international judicial aid provided for in the international laws, treaties and conventions.
16. To exercise the other functions that the state legal system attributes to it.

In particular, this public prosecutor’s Office also has the competence to know of the crimes committed outside the national territory, when according to the laws or the treaties correspond their prosecution to the Spanish courts, to continue a Procedure initiated abroad, execute sentences dictated by foreign courts when under international treaties it corresponds to Spain to continue a procedure initiated abroad, the execution of a penalty or measure of security Taxes by foreign courts. In all cases, the prosecution of the National Court intervenes.

Currently, more than 300 deaths caused by ETA are pending resolution, according to the official data. Reports and records of murders still unresolved are reviewed to find a detail, a loophole to be accommodated.

For example, this has allowed justice to reopen the attack on the Madrid ‘ command against General Juan José Hernández Rovira when there were less than two months left for his prescription. General Rovira was shot on July 1, 1994, and this same national hearing has indicted Arri Pascual and Idoia Martínez for his assassination.

From the associations we hope that the work in this field will give more fruit, although the limits they face are also warned, and not only at the judicial level.

“We find cases that are reopened but in the end cannot be judged because they have prescribed.” In this case, we ask ourselves, “what is more damaging to the victims, that they never know who the murderer is, or that they know but nothing can be done?” The answer is clear: the victims of the 11M want to know the truth, who is behind each of the ten cars detonated. It’s easy: your names and surnames.

To this day, the only truth for us is that the crimes are going to prescribe on March 11, 2024, that is, in five years and five months. Everything points out that by then, according to the judgement itself, its intellectual authors and those who fully designed the operation of the massacre will have passed to total impunity and oblivion, with the approval of the rule of law. We do not accept the existence of temporary limits to the persecution of these crimes, we do not accept impunity as a guarantee of the right of the victims.

It is for all this that on behalf of our associates and in memory of the deceased, the Association of Assistance to the victims of the 11M formally requests this national hearing and its chief prosecutor, D. Jesús Alonso Cristóbal A new investigation in order to identify the Intellectual authors of the 11M, as well as the adoption of measures necessary to avoid the prescription of these offences.

Association of Assistance to the victims of the 11M