The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has condemned Spain for not respecting the rights of ETA activist and ex head of Batasuna, ETA’s outlawed political wing, Arnaldo Otegi, in the case where he referred to King Juan Carlos ‘Chief of the torturers’.
The Batasuna leader referred to the Monarch during a rally in 2003 as ‘responsible for the torturers’ and was first found not guilty by the Basque High Court but then sentenced on appeal by the Supreme Court, and then the Constitutional Court in Spain to a year in prison for his remarks.
Now Spain finds itself having to pay 20,000 € for moral damage, and 3,000 more for costs, after the Strasbourg considered that punishment to be ‘severe and disproportionate’.
The court noted that the words used by Otegi ‘are not a gratuitous personal attack against the King’s person, nor do they question his private life or personal honour. The expressions used by Otegi referred only to the institutional responsibility of the King, in as much as head and symbol of state, and the forces which, according to him, had tortured those responsible for the Basque newspaper 'Egunkaria'’.
The PP’s spokesperson in Congress, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, was one of the first to comment on the EU court’s condemnation of Spain – ‘We have no option but to accept it’, she said, adding ‘I do not agree with this ruling and we will analyse its fundamentals’.
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