The Civil Guard arrests eight young people for the alleged attack of two off-duty civil guards and their partners during a bar fight in Altsasu

The investigating judge of the National High Court Carmen Lamela orders the Civil Guard to arrest eight young people in the municipality of Altsasu (Navarra) for an alleged attack on two off-duty civil guards and their respective partners during a bar fight in the morning of 16 October. The day after their arrest, the National High Court orders unconditional imprisonment without bail for six of the eight arrested for an alleged crime of terrorism, given the detainees’ presumed risk of escaping. The other two detainees are released given that they did not participate in the physical aggression against the civil guards. The following day, a seventh person who had voluntarily turned himself in to the National HIgh Court was arrested. On 22 November, Lamela declared the case under investigation, and at the request of the Collective of Victims of Terrorism of the Basque Country (COVITE), the prosecutor’s office and the Unified Association of Civil Guards, acting as the prosecution, prosecuted 7 of the 9 alleged aggressors for a crime of terrorism along with crimes of injury, hatred and attack on authority. In December, four of the detainees are provisionally released because the judge considers it difficult for them to ‘destroy evidence’ or ‘attack the victims’ legal asset.’ The movement calling for the departure of the State police forces from Navarre and the Basque Country, Ospa Mogimento, denounces a police assembly against the young people, arguing that if the accusation of terrorism is dropped, it would be under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Court of Navarra.