Arnaldo Otegi

Arnaldo Otegi
Arnaldo Otegi in April 2016
Secretary General of EH Bildu
Incumbent
Assumed office
17 June 2017
Secretary General of Sortu
In office
9 February 2011 – 17 June 2017
Preceded byPosition created
Succeeded byArkaitz Rodríguez
Member of the Basque Parliament
In office
21 September 1995 – 16 June 2005
ConstituencyGipuzkoa
Personal details
Born (1958-07-06) 6 July 1958 (age 66)
Elgoibar, Spain
CitizenshipSpain
Political partySortu (2011–present)
EH Bildu (2012–present)
Other political
affiliations		Herri Batasuna (1994–1998)
Euskal Herritarrok (1998–2001)
Batasuna (2001–2003)
SpouseJulia Arregi Gorrotxategi
Children2
ResidenceBasque Country
OccupationPolitician
Websitewww.arnaldotegi.eus

Arnaldo Otegi Mondragón (born 6 July 1958) is a politician from the Basque Country who has been the General Secretary of Basque nationalist party EH Bildu since 2017. He was member of the Basque Parliament for both Herri Batasuna and Euskal Herritarrok. He was a convicted member of the ETA, a banned armed separatist group organization,[1][2] in his early years.[3] He was one of the key negotiators during the unsuccessful peace talks in Loiola and Geneva, in 2006.[4]

In the 1990s, Otegi started his political career and quickly gained prominence within the Basque separatist movement, becoming the leader of Herri Batasuna. During the period, he participated in the attempts at finding a political and negotiated solution for the Basque conflict that laid out the grounds for the Lizarra-Garazi Agreements and ETA's truce in 1998.[5] He headed the party Batasuna, declared illegal in 2003 due to its relationship with ETA,[6] but continued talks with the Socialist Jesus Egiguren to reach a compromise leading to peace.[5]

In June 2007, Otegi was convicted of "praising terrorism",[7][8] imprisoned, and then released from prison in August the following year. In October 2009 he was arrested for attempting to put Batasuna back together, and was given a ten-year sentence.[9] In May 2012, his sentence was reduced to 6½ years by the Supreme Court of Spain as they considered him a member, but not a leader of ETA.[10][11] Otegi was released from prison on 1 March 2016, with the European Court of Humans Rights ruling against Spain for the Spanish National Court's breach of the defendant's right to have an impartial trial, for which he had spent 6 years in prison.[12]

Otegi was chosen as candidate for the post of Lehendakari by EH Bildu for the Basque parliamentary election of 2016 but the electoral committee invalidated his candidacy due to his penal disqualification.[13]

  1. ^ "Eta gives terrorists disguise manual". The Independent. London. 15 December 2007. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  2. ^ "Mutmaßliche Eta-Terroristen gefasst". Der Spiegel. 2 July 2007. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  3. ^ "Basque leader says Eta terror deaths 'should never have happened'". The Guardian. 18 October 2021. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  4. ^ "John Carlin Interviews Arnaldo Otegi". Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 16 January 2012.
  5. ^ a b "Biografía: Arnaldo Otegi, de ETA a la búsqueda de la paz". EITB (in Spanish). Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  6. ^ Goodman, Al (17 March 2003). "Basque independence party banned". CNN. Archived from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 14 October 2011.
  7. ^ Goodman, Al (8 June 2007). "Spain arrests ETA-linked lawmaker". CNN. Archived from the original on 8 July 2012. Retrieved 14 October 2011.
  8. ^ Judicial auto in Spanish (PDF)
  9. ^ "Engaging ETA". Irish Times. 19 September 2011. Archived from the original on 26 September 2011. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
  10. ^ Lázaro, Julio M. (9 May 2012). "El Supremo mantiene a Otegi en prision por un voto de diferencia". El País. elpais.com. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  11. ^ "El Supremo rebaja la condena de Otegi..." rtve.es, 9 May 2012. 9 May 2012.
  12. ^ "El Tribunal de Estrasburgo dictamina que Otegi no tuvo un juicio justo en el caso de la reconstrucción de Batasuna". eldiario.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  13. ^ "El Constitucional cierra a Otegi la posibilidad de ser candidato". El Mundo (Spain). 6 September 2016.