The lawyer Aiert Larrarte spoke first and explained the legal situation of Sorzabal in the first place. Sorzabal has had three trials before the National Court, in two he has been found innocent and in one he has been sentenced to 24 years in prison. That's what he's currently doing in Zaballa Prison. “In all three, the evidence has been the same, the evidence obtained under torture,” the lawyer said. In the previous trial in which he was acquitted, the court did not accept torture, but in the sentence that was known last Thursday, yes.

Thanks to Those Who Opposed Torture

Sorzabal’s defense appealed against the sentence, first to the Spanish Supreme Court and then to the Constitutional Court, but they were not admitted. Larrart reports that they will appeal to the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights in search of Sorzabal’s freedom, a decision they made before the final sentence. In this sense, the lawyer explains that the fact that the final judgment recognizes that Sorzabal’s statements are those obtained under torture will not have an “automatic” effect and will continue to work.

Larrarte believes that Thursday’s sentence is the achievement of many people and actors who have worked against torture for many years and in many ways. “Thank you” to all of them, the lawyer, in their name and in Sorzabal.

“The historical one”

In the name of the Truth Debt Foundation, Pilar Altual and Ainara Esteban speak. Thursday’s verdict is “historic” for the foundation because of its “content and tenacity.” They recall that the ruling “proves” that Sorzabal was tortured by the Civil Guard (which literally refers to the use of electrodes). According to the Foundation, it has also been shown that the period of incommunicado detention has been a “necessary coward for the practice of torture”, which “reveals” the “holes” of the rule of law and the judicial system that has ignored the obligation to investigate. The spokesmen recall that Sorzabal also received sexual violence, which is the result of “sexist and heteropatriarchal logics.”

“It’s not the past,” the foundation said of the torture, stressing that the consequences affect the present and the future.

Interpellation of institutions

In the face of the sentence, the Truth Debt Foundation demands a “unanimous and firm response” from the institutions. “Discourses about the need to educate in human rights, about the need to do pedagogy to delegitimize violence as a political tool... are left without content when our authorities choose silence as a response to such serious events.”

The foundation calls for “recognition and reparation” for Sorzabal and other “thousands” of tortured people. In this regard, they call for the amendment of the UAE Recognition Act and the extension of deadlines so that “people who have been tortured since 1999 can enjoy legal protection”.

Judge the perpetrators

Speaking on behalf of the Human Rights Observatory of the Basque Country, Iratxe Urizar. Finally, in the face of attempts to hide, the truth has been “imposed”: It was “systematic torture.” Drawing this “fact” has raised a number of questions: “Who were the torturers? Where are the yellow ones who applied the electrodes? Where, the ones who sexually assaulted him? The ones who threatened to kill him? Where are the perpetrators of these acts?”

The Observatory has announced complaints against these civil guards and explained that different options will be explored to make the complaints “effective”. He warns that even if the torture occurred in 2021, it should not be prescribed, and explains that if the Spanish courts do not take the initiative, he will appeal to the United Nations.

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