A historical tort of the victims of terrorism had the days numbered… if the electoral advance had not mediated: the difference of more than 100% in the compensation to the relatives of those murdered in terrorist attacks, whether or not the crime has been sentenced. The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaskahas admitted the will of the Government this Monday before the victims of terrorism associated with the Basque platform COVITE, who have been making this request for 13 years, but the matter remains pending.
“It is unfair that some lives are worth twice as much as others. If the attack had a known perpetrator and a court sentence, the maximum compensation is 500,000 euros. If Justice failed and the police investigation did not advance and therefore the attack has no Even with a court ruling, the State indemnifies 250,000”. That’s how it sums up Consuelo Ordóñez, president of COVITE, the situation created by Law 29/2011, for the Comprehensive Recognition and Protection of Victims of Terrorism, which caps at half a million euros in compensation for murders.
Mostly the law looks at the victims of ETA and attacks after 2011. The relatives of the people who were killed by the Atocha train bombs -the 11-M attack- received 900,000 euros by death. But it was an exception that marked the sentence for which the Judge Javier Gómez Bermúdez, ruling issued when the restriction of the Victims Law was not yet in force.
The yes of the Treasury
From Covite’s meeting with Minister Marlaska, a commitment has emerged from the head of the Interior to promote before the PSOE electoral committee that this commitment be included in the electoral program. The matter was on the table before the end of the 28-M campaign. “We were very close to achieving it,” they say in the Interior, while recalling sources from that ministry that Marlaska promoted before the parliamentary group that they work on a bill.
In April, Covite asked Interior to account for the commitment, and Interior asked the victims for three more weeks to wait. The deadline expired on 28-M… and the next day there was the announcement by the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, calling for elections generals.
In the days of waiting it was a matter of reviewing with the Minister of the Treasury, María Jesús Montero, how this request could be addressed budgetarily. It is 400 million euros the amount which Covite estimates for 379 crimes claimed by ETA, also considering the trail of wounded still pending compensation. The victims offered Interior that they be payable in various future years. The Treasury has not transmitted any opposition. Minister Montero has had a letter from the victims of Covite for months without responding.
The margin for failing to comply with this request is becoming narrower, regardless of who wins the elections: if the socialists manage to form a government after 23-J, there is support for Marlaska expressed before the electoral campaign; if it is the popular ones who govern after the elections, they would find themselves in the position of fulfilling or failing to fulfill a crucial request of two more than 1,000 victims of ETAcounting widows, widowers and orphans, and that the previous Government was studying.
Half a million max
It was precisely an orphan, the son of a national police officer murdered in Vitoria, who was the first to warn of the economic damage. Antonio Recio, a Social Security lawyer and a victim of ETA terrorism, had read a draft of the then victims’ bill in 2010. In its current wording, the law establishes in its article 20: “The total amount to be paid by the State, in concept of civil liability established in a sentence, may not exceed the following amounts: Death: €500,000. Major Disability: €750,000 Absolute permanent disability: €300,000 Total permanent disability: €200,000 Partial permanent disability: €125,000 Non-disabling injuries: €100,000 Kidnapping: €125,000”.
The key is in the set condition in the same article: the indemnities are payable “in concept of civil liability established in sentence”. The victims of ETA’s deadly crimes that the band claimed responsibility for, and that the Security Forces certified as a terrorist attack, but that have not yet been tried, have received 250,000 euros… those who have achieved it.
This same criterion is the one that was applied in the State compensation to the victims of the jihadist attacks of 17-A in Barcelona and Cambrils: a ceiling of 500,000 euros, without counting regional improvements.
The issue of different perceptions was discussed last December at a meeting of the Board of the Victims of Terrorism Memorial, in which, in addition to the President of the Government, are the heads of the Interior, Defense, Presidency and Finance. In that meeting, Pedro Sánchez had direct knowledge of the offense. Also the former mayor of San Sebastián and then deputy, Odon Elorza.
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It was this parliamentarian who began to work on the issue within the socialist group. But a short time later, on January 31, Elorza left his seat.
The PP presented in Congress on May 3 a proposal for an organic law “on unresolved ETA crimes and their victims for compliance with the report of April 21, 2022 of the European Parliament Petitions Committee.” The project does four mentions of “humiliation” of the victims of terrorism in public acts, but none to compensation.