THE BASQUE GOVERNMENT REQUESTS THE EUROPEAN ARREST WARRANT

Seven days after the provision, on 30 October 2018, a brief entered the case that defines it better than any other paper from its final stage: the prosecution exercised in the name of the Basque Government formally requested "a national arrest warrant and a European Arrest Warrant" against Apolozan (DOC-0145, pp. 91-98, where it appears in duplicate; signed by the lawyer of its legal service).

Let the reader pause on who was requesting what. The administration that processed the application without powers, that certified 1,778,000 euros and then declared them zero, that initiated the non-compliance in the synchronised fortnight of November 2013, that published in its gazette what its archives refuted — that same administration was now requesting the European arrest of the man who had reported it (A.12) and who maintained against it a substantive claim over the GAUZATU.

It was not a neutral party seeking judicial assistance: it was the reported party requesting the arrest of its reporter, on the eve of the trial where both accounts were to be confronted. The European Arrest Warrant — an instrument conceived for terrorists and fled criminals — was being requested against a builder whose address was certified by the Tax Office and without a single step proving any search.

The most severe instrument of European judicial cooperation, requested by the party with the greatest interest in the accused arriving at trial as "the fugitive". That too was written, signed and filed.