Adjournment due to the impossibility to guarantee the right to a defence

The session began with Xabier Alegria refusing to answer the questions posed by the prosecution, denying the legitimacy of a special court which "supports the use of torture as a working method". Alegria reported having suffered brutal treatment at the hands of the Guardia Civil when he was arrested in relation to the Egunkaria Case, another piece in this macro-case. Arantza Zulueta, his lawyer, began asking her questions and the first piece of documentary evidence she requested was not found. The court produced several documents, but the court secretary was unable to ensure these were in fact the ones the lawyer had requested. Following several recesses to search for the said document, the chair of the Tribunal, Angela Murillo, acknowledged "we have received these proceedings in an awful state" and went on to tell the defence lawyer: "this is what we have; if you want to question the witness, go ahead and question, otherwise don't"
In view of this situation, the defence lawyers requested the protection of the Bizkaia, Araba and Gipuzkoa Bar Associations, as well as of the Basque Council of Lawyers. On this point, we must remember that at the last session in the year, the judge decided to allow the defence lawyers a few days during the Christmas holiday period to study the documents included in preliminary proceedings Nº 75/89, which had been kept secrecy since 1989 for the defence, whilst both the state and the private prosecutions had had access to these documents right from the beginning. The defence lawyers were able to see the chaotic situation of these proceedings for themselves -disordered, illogically organised- and verify the fact that it is impossible to analyse the enormous amount of material in the proceedings -over one hundred thousand sheets of paper, in one hundred boxes- in such a short period.

Nazario Oleaga, the Dean of the Bizkaia Bar Association, and President of the Basque Council of Lawyers requested a meeting with Angela Murillo, the Chair of the Tribunal, and with Carlos Dívar, the President of the Audiencia Nacional in order to see whether the defence's complaints are founded and, if so, to demand appropriate measures to be put in place. In his request, Mr. Oleaga stated that "the right to a defence cannot be exercised in the way established by the Constitution". He insisted that "I cannot hide my concerns about the events the complaints refer to, mainly regarding deficient access to the documentary evidence requested before the beginning of the trial, given its extraordinary volume and the non-provision of copies to the lawyers who requested the said evidence"

The defence lawyers insisted that "we believe our actions are fully justified, and we shall therefore submit to our Deans' criteria. Therefore, they announced they would not attend the trial until the said meeting has taken place and only after hearing their Deans' opinion.