Aurore Martin’s Extradition Brings French Basque Policy into Question

Is it possible to be extradited and tried in a foreign country for something that is legal in a person’s native land? Can a person be sent to Spain to atone for events that took place in France?

The answers to both questions, at the heart of the Aurore Martin case, may be found by looking at political relations rather than legal texts.

Aurore Martin is a 33 year-old French woman from Mauléon, in the French Basque Country. She is currently in prison in Madrid. Targeted by a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) since October 2010 due to her “activity in a terrorist organization and terrorism”, Martin, a French citizen, was handed over to Spanish authorities after being arrested near her hometown on November 1st. Spain has been pursuing her due to her membership in the Basque separatist organization Batasuna.

What looks like a simple extradition suddenly gets complicated. Batasuna is a perfectly legal organization in France and Aurore Martin is a French citizen. Spain, on the other hand, considers Batasuna a terrorist organization, merely the political wing of the armed group ETA. The official motif behind the warrant was Aurore Martin’s participation in two Batasuna meetings on Spanish soil, in Pamplona, in 2006 and 2007. She could face up to twelve years in prison.

This is the first time a French citizen has been handed over to Spain as a result of a European Arrest Warrant. It’s also the first time a French citizen is tried in Spain for something that is legal in France.

But matters suddenly got even more complicated once the Basque activist went before the judge at the Spanish Audiencia Nacional (special court dedicated to matters of terrorism) for a preliminary hearing. Judge Pablo Ruz, responsible for the case, read out the list of charges against Aurore Martin. On this list were not only the meetings in Pamplona, but also...taking part in Batasuna meetings in France! “It’s completely mind-blowing,” commented Martin’s lawyer, Jone Gorizelaia.

Not only are these activities perfectly legal in France, but the French court of Pau (with juristiction over the Pyrénées-Atlantiques region) specifically removed these charges as the primary condition for accepting the European Arrest Warrant in 2010.

According to Max Brisson, department secretary of the center-right UMP party, France is currently faced with a “state scandal”.

Suspicious Irregularities

What are the new accusations? Aurore Martin took part in a press conference in Bayonne in 2006 and a rally in Ustarritz in 2007. She is also to be tried for having received a financial transfer to her bank account from the Communist Party of the Basque Country (EHAK), a party that is illegal in Spain since 2008.

Under French pressure Spain had removed the charges from the EAW: the last one because EHAK was still legal when Aurore Martin received the finances, and the first two because these are not considered illegal activity in France.

The European Arrest Warrant system first went into application in 2004. It’s aim was to facilitate judicial and police collaboration amongst EU member states. By using the warrant, European judges can work directly with one another and avoid the long processes that normal extraditions require, namely waiting for government approval.

Although it does allow member states to pursue individuals living in countries where legislation differs concerning the charges at hand, it forbids, according to deputy Mayor of Bayonne Jean-René Etchegarray, a foreign state from trying an individual for matters committed in that person’s native country.

But what’s unclear and rather worrying for Aurore Martin and her family and supporters, is the fact that once in Spanish custody, it is Spanish justice that has control over the case. European law specialist Henri Labayle assures that such action would be illegal “and would be sanctioned by a Spanish court of appeals itself”. However such a drawn-out legal battle would imply the meantime that Martin would remain in custody.

The Basque activist’s supporters have appealed directly to the government. Twenty Basque deputies, from all political parties except the far right Front National, were received by the government’s department representative. They also wrote a letter to French President François Hollande. The national Ligue des Droits de l’Homme followed suit.

Minister Valls and the Government’s Role

So far the government has declined any comment in regards to the Spanish judge’s decision to try Aurore Martin for events that took place in France. It has, on the other hand, in the person of Interior Minister Manuel Valls, defended the efficiency of the system of European Arrest Warrants, all the while denying any government involvement in the arrest and extradition of the young woman.

Valls gave an interview to the French Basque newspaper Sud Ouest in when he explained how events transpired and what led to the decision to hand Martin over to Spain. “Aurore Martin was stopped at a routine police checkpoint, quite common during this period of vacation (...). Her name was on a list of wanted subjects. I deny any other version of these events.”

Aurore Martin’s supporters, however, believe her arrest to have been planned, and claim to have seen several police controls along several different highways. This is something quite unusual, especially given that the police stopped all cars but gave no alcohol tests. A witness has said, “they were armed and were searching the cars. No one was arrested and I thought that they were looking for someone from ETA.” Sud Ouest also claims, from a reliable source, that an operation was taking place, though it was not necessarily a search for Martin, but may have been a drug-search operation. The department court of Pau “cannot confirm nor deny” this information. In any case Martin’s supporters do not believe a word of the official version of a routine control. A group of supporters issued a press communiqué in which they referred to Minister Valls as a “liar” and accuse him of being behind the operation.

Valls, himself a Catalan born in Barcelona, was also asked about the disproportionality between the charges and the possible sentence, to which he claimed to “trust the Spanish courts to handle Aurore Martin’s case while taking into consideration the fact that she has no blood on her hands. It’s the justice of a democracy, of a nation that, let’s not forget it, has suffered the violence at the hands of ETA”. When asked whether he believes Aurore Martin is being tried for her beliefs, he answered that “in a democratic society there is no place for violent acts or violent speech.” Contradictory declarations for a minister of the French state, according to whose law Batasuna is an authorized organization and not one guilty of “violent acts or violent speech”.

The issue at hand here is not the struggle against ETA’s terrorism, but Aurore Martin, who Paris seems to consider guilty of something. Because by speaking about ETA and joint antiterrorist cooperation when asked about an activist in an organization that’s legal in France Valls does indirectly justify her extradition. Yet he can’t openly say what crimes Martin is guilty of committing since to do so would be to admit that her crimes are her political beliefs.

Confusing two separate issues is not something new for Valls, who also gave an interview on October 29th, four days before Aurore Martin’s capture, to the Spanish newspaper El Pais. This interview, which outlines new reinforced French and Spanish police cooperation that has recently enabled the capture of leading ETA militants, including their military chief, ends on a triumphant note. “We will follow the Spanish government in anything it decides.”

This seems to mean that Paris will follow Madrid in anything it decides, not only in combatting ETA but also in it’s opposition to Basque nationalism and its attacks on political parties such as Batasuna. During the interview Mr. Valls gave his own perspective on the Basque question. “There will be no (French) Basque administrative structure, we do not want to have this debate. For us everything is clear, and until ETA turns in its arms we will be inflexible.”

Political Justice

It’s difficult to interpret Valls’ remarks in any other way than that his, and the French government’s, attitude to the Basque question will be the same as Spain’s. France’s attitude to Basque independence is mentioned while talking about ETA, and the specter of ETA is brandished when speaking to those who denounce the arrest of a Basque nationalist activist.

This is not to mention the fact that Madrid’s new offensive against Basque separatism comes a year after ETA has declared that it will permanently abandon its armed struggle, and after significant political gains made by left nationalists in elections.

It seems that, however complicated the legal situation is, Aurore Martin is a victim of the political choices of two governments. A victim of the Spanish government’s choice to go after her, despite the fact that she is, even according to Minister Valls, an activist “with no blood on her hands.” And of the Spanish government’s choice to try her for her activities in France.

But the French Basque native is also a victim of the French government’s political choices. After all France has the possibility of turning down European Arrest Warrants if it is believed that a person is being pursued for his or her political beliefs. France has done this several times, including at the end of October when it rejected the EAW that targeted Arturo Villanueva.

Both the Basque deputies and the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme have understood the political character of this affair of justice and have called on the political authorities to intervene. The Ligue des Droits de l’Homme’s letter ends with the following matter of reflection.

“Beyond the juridical elements, the fact remains that a young woman is being held in custody for a duration of at least several months, by a law of exception because the Spanish authorities feel they have to criminalize a political expression, that of Basque separatism.”