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Basque man who was deported from Canada now facing trial after three years of pre-trial detention
IVAN APAOLAZA SANCHO TO BE TRIED ON TORTURE EVIDENCE
Below:
- UPDATE: IVAN FACING THIRTY YEARS
- CONTEXT: CANADA AND SPAIN, PARTNERS IN TORTURE
- COURT OBSERVERS, LETTERS, FILM NIGHT, ACTION
:::UPDATE: IVAN FACING THIRTY YEARS ON INFORMATION OBTAINED OR DERIVED FROM TORTURE:::
On 18 October 2008, Ivan Apaolaza Sancho was deported from Canada by special charter flight, manacled hand and foot, and handed over to authorities in Spain. The deportation was a bitter ending to a fifteen month campaign in which the Basque man was imprisoned in Montreal, denied the right to apply for refugee status, and eventually deported - all on the basis of information that a Canadian tribunal recognized was obtained under torture.
Under Spanish law, people charged with crimes considered terrorist can spend up to four years in pre-trial detention. Ivan has now spent three long years in a number of detention centres in Spain, all far from his home-town, under the Spanish state's dispersal policy for Basque political prisoners. UN Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin found that this practice of dispersal "constitutes a risk and an economic burden for visits by family members, as well as a practical obstacle for the preparation of the defence in cases where pretrial inmates are incarcerated long distances away from their lawyers" (Mission to Spain, A/HRC/10/3/Add.2, 16 December 2008).
Ivan's trial, under the Audiencia Nacionale - a specialized anti-terrorist court - is finally due to start on 17 October, three years after his deportation from Canada. Ivan will be tried under anti-terrorism measures of the Spanish criminal code, whose broad definitions make burning an ATM an act of "urban terrorism", criminalize lawyers and journalists for "collaboration" and "glorification of terrorism", and punish membership in a "terrorist organization" while failing to define the term. Under these sweeping provisions and Spain's much criticized inquisitorial system, Ivan will have to prove his innocence and will have two days to do so.
The same information which led to Ivan's deportation from Canada, recognized by a Canadian tribunal to have been obtained by torture, is being used as evidence in his trial. ALL of the other information being used against him appears to be derivative of that torture information.
The use of information obtained under torture as evidence is unjustifiable and repugnant. It is also a violation of the UN Convention against Torture which stipulates that treaty signatories, "shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings."
If convicted, Ivan faces thirty years in prison. Thirty years of prison for Basque political prisoners means thirty years of uncertainty, due to the regimes of exception that are applied in these cases. According to Human Rights Watch (Setting an example? Counter-terrorism measures in Spain, www.hrw.org/reports/2005/spain0105), Spain's practice of dispersing Basque political prisoners is considered by human rights groups to be an additional punishment and is applied arbitrarily, without legal foundation. Similarly, policies of arbitrarily extending sentences and refusing parole create a punishing atmosphere of uncertainty for Basque prisoners.
More about Ivan's struggle against deportation from Canada:
www.peoplescommission.org/en/sancho/
www.peoplescommission.org/en/sancho/
:::CONTEXT: CANADA AND SPAIN, PARTNERS IN TORTURE:::
Ivan was deported after the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) declared him inadmissable to Canada on grounds of national security. However, not one piece of evidence to support the allegations that Spain made against Ivan was presented to Canadian courts to justify this ruling. All the government provided to the court were Spanish arrest warrants containing a series of allegations. These allegations are based on a "confession" a Basque woman, Ana Belen Egues Garruchagu, made under torture while she was held incommunicado by Spanish police. In May 2008, the IRB recognized that this confession was obtained under torture.
Under Canadian immigration law, people who are ruled inadmissable on national security grounds are stripped of their right to apply for refugee status, even though states have an internationally recognized obligation to grant asylum to people who are at risk of torture or other abuse.
People to whom Canada denies the right to seek asylum and "failed asylum-seekers" can still apply for a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA). If someone is assessed to be at risk under this process, in most (not all) situations, Canada will not deport them. However, as Ivan's case illustrates, PRRA applications are very rarely successful.
Ivan applied for a PRRA on the grounds that a Canadian tribunal had recognized that his co-accused in Spain had been tortured while held in incommunicado detention by Spanish police. Spanish law allows police to hold suspects in incommunicado detention for up to to 5 days, with possible extension of eight more days. It is in this situation of total vulnerability that Spanish police are known to use torture. The UN Special Rapporteur, noting that complaints of torture are made "continuously" by prisoners who have been held incommunicado, expressed his concern that the regime of incommunicado detention creates the conditions for torture. In the same report, the Special Rapporteur noted that reports of torture were regularly dismissed by Spanish judges without serious consideratoin and investigations into allegations of torture were unduly prolonged. (Also see HRW, 'Use of Incommunicado Detention', www.hrw.org/node/11860/section/7.) Similarly, in two recent judgements, the European Court of Human Rights Court found that the Spanish state had breached Article three of the Convention against Torture by failing to properly investigate torture complaints (San Argimiro Isasa c. Espagne (2507/07, 28 September 2010) and Beristain Ukar c. Espagne (40351/05, 8 March 2011).
Despite the clear grounds for finding that there was a risk to Ivan, his PRRA was dismissed. On the eve of his deportation, he turned to the Federal Court, seeking to stay the deportation so that the court could review the highly questionable PRRA decision. Denying Ivan even this limited appeal, the presiding Federal Court judge dismissed the human rights reports indicating that Ivan was indeed at risk of torture, commenting that Spain "was hardly Guantanamo". And on this basis, Ivan was deported and directly handed over to Spanish authorities.
:::COURT OBSERVERS; LETTERS; FILM NIGHT; ACTION:::
To hold Canada accountable for its complicity in political repression in Spain, to demand a fair trial for Ivan (including the withdrawal of all information obtained or derived from torture), and to express our solidarity with Ivan and the struggle for Basque self-determination, and the Committee to Support Ivan Apaolaza Sancho is calling for letter-writing to Canadian and Spanish officials, organizing a film and discussion night, and holding a public action around the trial.
We are also sending several court observers to Madrid and will be making their reports public and informing media in Canada and Spain that the case against Ivan is based on torture.
--> SUPPORT THE COURT OBSERVERS FINANCIALLY
Please consider supporting our court observers, who will be travelling to Spain to express solidarity and provide an international presence in court to try to hold the Audiencia Nacionale to international standards of justice and draw attention to the use of information obtained under torture in Spain.
Cheques can be made out to "Réseau de la Commission populaire" with "Ivan campaign" in the memo line and mailed to
QPIRG Concordia - People's Commission
c/o Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve O.
Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8
--> WRITE LETTERS
Please write a letter and send to all the addresses below, demanding a fair trial for Ivan, according to international standards of justice and specifically that all information obtained from or derived from torture be withdrawn. Please point out that, in May 2008, Commissioner Dubé of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board acknowledged that the "confession" by Ana Belen Egues Garruchagu was likely obtained under torture, and that the use of this information in Ivan's trial, as well of any derivative evidence, constitutes a violation of the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT). Please also point out that Spain has repeatedly been found to have failed in its CAT obligation to properly investigate torture allegations. Make clear to Canadian officials that you hold them responsible for what happens to Ivan.
D. Eudaldo Mirapeix y Martínez
Spanish Ambassador to Canada
emb.ottawa@maec.es
John Baird
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada
john.baird@parl.gc.ca
Vic Toews
Minister of Public Safety of Canada
toews.v@parl.gc.ca
--> FILM EVENING
Come out to an evening of films on to learn about the Basque struggle and Canadian complicity in Spanish political repression.
Thursday, 13 October at 7pm
Pavillon Paul-Gérin-Lajoie (N)
Salle N-M120, 1205, rue Saint-Denis
Salle N-M120, 1205, rue Saint-Denis
Metro Berri-UQAM
Featuring:
* L’Écho du Silence,Chloé Germain-Thérien / Les Lucioles (20 minutes, FR), Documentary on the story of Gorka and Eduardo, two Basque political prisoners who were tortured and fled to seek justice in Quebec.
* Ivan Apaolaza Sancho: Basque Political Prisoner (15 min, FR), Documentary on the case of a Basque political prisoner on trial in October 2011 in Madrid.
* presentations by Marc-André Cyr (member of the support committee for Gorka and Eduardo) and members of the Ivan Apaolaza Support Committee.
--> ACTION
Join us in a Montreal-based action to demand a fair trial for Ivan, and specifically the withdrawal of torture evidence, and an end to the repression of the Basque movement for self-determination. Contact us for details: libertepourivan@gmail.com.
MORE INFO:
Support Committee for Ivan
libertepourivan@gmail.com
www.peoplescommission.org/en/sancho/
About the poster
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