The Basque Government on the Anboto case: "We comply with prison legislation. We must distinguish between noise and truth. "

The First Vice-President and Councillor for Culture and Linguistic Policy, Ibone Bengoetxea, has defended the decisions of the Basque Government with regard to prison policy, denying that "arbitrary decisions are taken" and stressing that many of them have been ratified by the judges. In statements to Radio Popular, he has said that "noise and truth must be distinguished"and has stressed that the Government is limited to "the enforcement of prison legislation".

These statements follow the final decision of the National High Court, which has decided not to apply to Soledad Iparragirre Anboto and Juan Ramón Carasatorre, both convicted of belongingto ETA in the past.

Ms. Bengoetxea explained that such decisions were administrative acts and could be appealed, and recalled that although in this case the Prison Supervision Judge had not ratified the measure, on other occasions he had joined the Government's decisions.

Bengoetxea has also criticized the "interested noise" which, in his view, is used to erode the Government or to reinforce extremism. He has also warned of the rise of "extremism and populism", both in the State as a whole and in Basque politics.

PP reaction and Sare's concern

From the opposition, Javier de Andrés, president of the Basque People's Party, has called for the resignation of the Justice Counsellor, María Jesús San José, who , in his view, has "violated the law" by granting alleged favourable treatment to ETA prisoners.

According to De Andrés, the court ruling shows that the policies of the Basque Government imply a "covert amnesty", which has been linked to the agreements between the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, and EH Bildu.

For its part, the Sare Association for the Rights of Prisoners has expressed its "concern and disagreement" with the judicial decision because, in its view, it is motivated by political reasons rather than legal reasons, decisions that approach the logic of "revenge" and criticize the use of the victims' pain as an argument.

On the other hand, the Covite Victims ' Association has supported the decision by stating that the Basque Government has amended a series of measures which 'should never have been taken' and which, according to the group, are distorting prison legislation in order to facilitate the semi-release of ETA prisoners without complying with the legal requirements.