Arnaldo Otegi
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Arnaldo Otegi Mondragón (b. 6 July 1958) is the ideological enforcer and spokesman for the Basque nationalist party Batasuna, which was illegalised in 2003. He was a convicted member of ETA before entering politics. He has stated that he agrees with the aims of ETA, but disagrees with the means employed by ETA with regard to these ends, namely violence[citation needed]. On April 27, 2006 he was sentenced to, but has to date not served, 15 months in prison for glorifying terrorism.
[edit] Biography
Otegi was born July 6, 1958 in Elgoibar, (Gipuzkoa), in the autonomous Basque region of Euskadi, in northern Spain. He holds a university degree in Philosophy and Literature, and is married with two children.
Between 1977 and 1989 he was actively involved in several operations conducted by ETA. On 21st February 1989 he was found of guilty of kidnapping and sentenced to six years in jail. In October 1990 he was released after having served half of his sentence. He decided to change the approach through which he could effect the change he desired, and on September 27, 1995, he entered politics, becoming an MP for the political party Herri Batasuna. In November 1997 the Spanish Supreme Court sentenced several senior members of Herri Batasuna to seven years in jail, due to alleged involvement with ETA, and in the resulting power vacuum, Joseba Permach and Otegi were chosen to lead the new provisional leadership of Herri Batasuna.
In September 12, 1998 Otegi was a key member in the formation of the "Declaration of Estella/Lizarra", which proposed to solve the Basque conflict by beginning a process of dialogue with the other nationalist parties, most prominently, the PNV. This marked a profound change in Otegi's style, and appeared to show him renouncing his former violent ways. In the Basque elections of October 25, 1998 he was a candidate for the party Euskal Herritarrok, which had replaced Herri Batasuna, representing the region of Gipuzkoa. The Lizarra-Garazi agreements, which resulted in an ETA truce at that time, helped give Euskal Herritarrok their best results for 10 years, and they became the 3rd largest political party in the Basque Country and the adjacent region of Navarra. This peak in terms of votes was reversed as ETA discontinued the truce with new assassinations.
However, the controversy that has pursued Otegi throughout his career remained present. In August 2000, a senior court in the Basque country accused him of justifying terrorism. As a former active terrorist and now spokeman of its (banned) political wing, he has established himself as a hate-figure for victims of terrorism. In May 2005 he was put on trial for membership of the terrorist group ETA, and posted bail for €400,000, money which, it has been alleged, was raised by ETA by a series of extortions. He was also sentenced to a year in prison for labelling King Juan Carlos I of Spain "the head of torturers".
