On 19 December, he will be tried at the National Hearing Ioseba Iturbide, Lesaka, charged with murder. The Public Prosecutor’s Office is asking him for eight years in prison for acts dating back to the events that took place eleven years ago. However, relatives, friends and local neighbors have reported that the only evidence against him is the torture statements of Mattin Sarasola, who died in 2008.

As will be recalled, on 6 January 2008 the Civil Guard detained in Mondragón the Lesakarras Igor Portu and Mattin Sarasola, accused of ETA integration. They were arrests of great impact, as by the following day Igor Portu was admitted to the hospital in critical condition due to torture. Mattin Sarasola was violently tortured by the Civil Guard after being held incommunicado for five days by the Civil Guard.

Two days after these arrests, on 8 January, the two civil guards inside the house tried to arrest Mikel San Sebastian and Ioseba Iturbide, who were not located. They were arrested on 15 February in San Juan de Luz (Donibane Lohizune). Iturbide, released on 1 June 2010, was re-arrested in France on 28 October 2012. After serving a five-year prison sentence in France, the judge transferred her to Spain and released her. San Sebastian is currently a prisoner, dispersed.

10 years later, Ioseba Iturbide has been summoned again to appear before the judge, to be tried for acts of eleven years ago. The main tests against Iturbide in this trial are the statements made at Police Station Mattin Sarasola. It cannot be forgotten that the Donostia-San Sebastian Court and the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights ruled that Igor Portu and Mattin Sarasola were mistreated during their detention. The people's initiative in Lesaka concludes that it "absolutely questions" the value of the Sarasola declaration, as it is torture. "And that's the only proof they have against Ioseba: the statements they've made under torture," they say.

"We want to show our support to neighbour Ioseba Iturbide in dealing with this trial," he added. As the only evidence is statements under torture, a trial is not acceptable. Moreover, after the Strasbourg judgment, after the ill-treatment has been demonstrated, we do not accept that Mattin should use the tortured statements as evidence," they said yesterday in the town square.

"In Euskal Herria a new time for peace and political normalization has been opened in recent years. ETA has taken firm steps in that direction, while the Spanish State remains trapped in the whirlwind of repression in the past. It is time to give a definitive solution to the Basque conflict, to empty the jails, to bring the prisoners to Euskal Herria… In this way we denounce that the trial against Ioseba is nothing but an obstacle”.

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