[Original en català] · [Versión en castellano] · [In English]

We are shocked and disgusted by the absolution yesterday on technicalities of 18 members of a neo Nazi group in Valencia, on trial for illegal association, possession of prohibited weapons and possession of firearms.

Those on trial included two soldiers, a councillor for the fascist party España 2000 and the self-confessed murderer of the young Valencian antifascist, Guillem Agulló, in April 1993 (the murderer served only 4 years in prison).

The Nazis were absolved when the Court ruled out all the evidence obtained as a result of a telephone tap carried out by the paramilitary police force, the Guardia Civil. Incredibly, the other key pieces of evidence, the arms seized from the Nazis, were destroyed by the very same Guardia Civil before the start of the trial.

We echo the words of Toni Gisbert, of People’s Action Against Impunity, the social movement which worked hard for a conviction:

“The elimination of the phone taps might mean the exclusion of evidence but it can’t exclude the truth. And the truth is that it has been shown that there was an organized Nazi group with a violent ideology and attitude, and that they possessed banned weapons… And we ask ourselves: doesn’t the Court consider to be an offence the possession of prohibited weapons, nor the organisation of a Nazi group nor the existence of a group with a violent ideology and attitude? What message is the Court giving to society?”

As, Gisbert says, this comes in a European context “in which there is a growing social concern regarding the emergence of fascism and populism… But the possession of arms and the creation of fascist groups are not crimes in the Spanish state.”

It is worrying that the same Court acquitted the Nazi group Armagedon in 2005.

We send our solidarity to all the family and friends of the many victims of fascism in Valencia, as well as to People’s Action Against Impunity.

Unidad Contra el Fascismo y el Racismo,
Barcelona 31 July 2014

List of other signatures