Petra Elser

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Petra Elser, 2009

Petra Elser (born May 26, 1953 in Frankfurt am Main ) is a former German terrorist and a former member of the Basque underground organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA). She also works as a translator.

Participation in the ETA

Petra Elser initially lived in Frankfurt am Main, where she was active in the autonomous and feminist movement.

In 1991 she moved to Madrid, where , according to a Focus report, she rented an apartment on Calle Bravo Murillo 359-2 that was used for three years for ETA conspiratorial meetings. In October of the same year she took an intensive course in Spanish culture at the Complutense University in Madrid , until she got a job as a German teacher in a private school in 1993. Spanish investigators assume that Elser was part of the hard core of ETA from mid-1994. In Madrid she is said to have met Aguirre Lete, one of the leading figures at ETA. In 1994 they both moved into a flat in the French Basque Country and Elser had a son.

Elser is said to have been involved in the preparation of an attack on a Spanish Air Force bus in 1994, in which soldiers were seriously injured in some cases. The Spanish police arrested the couple in Bayonne , France in 1995 . Explosives and grenades were seized in the shared apartment. Elser denied both membership in the ETA and involvement in planning an attack.

Criminal proceedings

In February 2000, after 39 months in pre- trial detention , she was sentenced to 30 months in prison. On June 23, 2000, the prosecution of the Paris Court of Appeal decided that Petra Elser could be extradited to Spain. She was imprisoned in Soto del Real near Madrid. It was over a year before they were finally delivered. In this she lived and worked in Paris. On November 9, 2001, she was arrested in Paris and extradited to Madrid. In December 2001, an objection was lodged against the arrest warrant for membership in the ETA.

After months of delay, the Fourth Chamber of the Audiencia Nacional de España , the highest criminal court in Spain, was heard on June 14, 2002 . The second charges against Petra Elser had to be dropped by the Spanish public prosecutor's office due to a lack of evidence . There was no well-founded evidence for the allegation of the 19-fold attempted murder. She had always denied having been a member of ETA or having supported that organization.

In January 2003, Petra Elser lodged a constitutional complaint after 14 months in Spanish pre-trial detention . On July 2, 2003, she was acquitted before the Spanish special court Audiencia Nacional de España. The judges then ordered her immediate release. The court ruled not to convict her of membership in the armed organization ETA as it would have been a prohibited double punishment. However, she had to wait 19 months in the Madrid remand prison for her trial. In France, she had previously been extradited for 17 months .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ REINER WANDLER: Frankfurt woman in the Madrid command? In: The daily newspaper: taz . November 10, 2001, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 12 ( taz.de [accessed on March 4, 2019]).
  2. ↑ a b c FOCUS Online: German ETA mercenaries. Retrieved March 4, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Freia Peters: Terrorist out of love? March 9, 2002 ( welt.de [accessed March 4, 2019]).
personal data
SURNAME Elser, Petra
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German terrorist and a former member of ETA
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main