Arnaldo Otegi

Who is Arnaldo Otegi?

Arnaldo Otegi Mondragón is a Basque politician and spokesman for the outlawed abertzale Basque separatist party Batasuna. He has been a member of the Basque parliament for both Herri Batasuna and Euskal Herritarrok. These two parties and Batasuna were banned in 2003 for having links to ETA. He was one of the key negotiators during the last unsuccessful peace talks in Loiola and Geneva, in 2006. He has been one of the leading figures in Batasuna's change of strategy and ETA's end. He is currently in prison accused of trying to re-organize Batasuna.

Before joining politics he had been convicted of being an ETA member and taking part in several actions, amongst which was the kidnapping of the Basque entrepreneur Luis Abaitúa. In the 1990s he started his political career and he quickly gained prominence within the Basque separatism movement, and became the leader of Batasuna after the whole National Committee of Herri Batasuna was arrested. However the party was declared illegal in 2003 due to its relationship with ETA. In June 2007 he was convicted of "praising terrorism", imprisoned, and then released from prison in August the following year.