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Strasbourg (France) (AFP) – The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned Spain on Tuesday for having interrogated a member of the Basque separatist organization ETA without the presence of his lawyer, during his incommunicado detention.
The case refers to the incommunicado preventive detention of Javier Atristain Gorosabel, and an interrogation to which he was subjected at the end of 2010, without the assistance of his lawyer.
Atristain Gorosabel is currently serving a 17-year prison sentence for belonging to a terrorist organization and possession of explosives.
The ECHR first noted that “the incommunicado detention order was provided for by the relevant law, but was too general in nature” in the case of Atristain Gorosabel.
The document also mentions that “from the point of view of the fairness of the procedure as a whole, the fact of having prevented the plaintiff’s court-appointed attorney from seeing his client in a timely manner and of having prevented the latter from being assisted by a counsel of his choice had the effect of undermining the fairness of the subsequent criminal trial”.
He also pointed out that the Spanish Code of Criminal Procedure was modified in 2015 and now “imposes an individual evaluation of the particular situation of incommunicado persons”, but “this modification was not applied at the relevant time”.
Therefore, the court considered a violation of article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, on the right to a fair trial and the right to legal aid of their choice.
Spain must pay the plaintiff 12,000 euros ($13,600) for non-pecuniary damage and 8,000 euros ($9,100) for costs and expenses.
© 2022 AFP
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