Basque MEP can account for every ‘last cent’ of 200,000 euro found in car

Date: 08/05/02

By David Cronin

THE Basque MEP whose party colleagues were arrested recently with €200,000 in cash from his bank account this week insisted that the full amount came from his European Parliament salary and expenses.

Koldo Gorostiaga, a deputy with nationalist party Herri Batasuna - the political wing of paramilitary group ETA - made the claim in a letter sent on Monday (6 May) to the assembly's secretary-general, Julian Priestley.

The MEP said he could explain down to 'the very last cent' that the money had come from bona fide sources.

'I don't have anything to hide,' Gorostiaga added. 'I am personally ready to give an explanation to anybody if there is fair play in their attitudes.'

Both left and right-leaning Spanish deputies demanded an internal probe in March after two Batasuna members were arrested near the Franco-Belgian border.

The pair, one member of which was party treasurer Jon Gorrotzategui, had stashed €200,300 in the car in which they were travelling.

Gorostiaga said the money had been withdrawn with his consent from his branch in the Parliament's Brussels headquarters.

Priestley subsequently wrote to Gorostiaga asking him to explain how he had amassed such a large sum. Parliamentary insiders have expressed astonishment that he could have saved the money from his salary and expenses, given that he was only elected to the assembly in summer 1999.

Gorostiaga declined to provide European Voice with a copy of his letter to Priestley. 'This is strictly confidential,' he said. 'I am not against the idea of transparency if the secretary-general accepts the idea for all MEPs.'

He said he had fulfilled his duty in providing Priestley with the information he had requested in 'very difficult circumstances' as he had not been able to speak with his party treasurer in preparing the explanation.

Although released by the French authorities a few days after his arrest in March, Gorrotzategui was subsequently re-arrested, this time by Spanish police, in a round-up of leading Basque nationalist figures on 30 April.

This latest arrest followed a lengthy investigation by high-profile judge Baltasar Garzón into how ETA is financed.

Garzón's team has gathered evidence which suggests that a network of 140 'people's bars' or herriko tabernas across the Basque country may have been used for money-laundering.

ETA claimed responsibility last Wednesday (1 May) for a car bomb explosion outside Madrid's Bernabeu stadium, shortly before the European Champions League semi-final game between Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Koldo Gorostiaga, the Basque MEP whose party colleagues were arrested in March 2002 with €200,000 in cash from his bank account, insisted on 6 May 2002 that the full amount came from his European Parliament salary and expenses.