Echoes of the past return as Spain jails two over suspected ETA revival

Spain's Audiencia Nacional (a national incivil court) has remanded Aratz Bilbao Gómez and Malen Grünig Ibáñez in custody on terrorism charges, identifying them as members of Jardun Koordinadora, a network of dissidents from the left-wing Basque independence movement who opposed ETA's dissolution. The car they were travelling in contained sketches of former hideouts, lists of officers and satellite phones.

The story begins at four in the morning on 26 September 2026, at a drug and alcohol checkpoint in Eskoriatza, a village in Gipuzkoa of around 4,200 inhabitants. The Ertzaintza (Basque regional police) stop a vehicle carrying three people. When they identify the driver, Malen Grünig Ibáñez, aged 23, the officers discover that Italy had requested discreet monitoring of her for national security reasons. The other two occupants also had alerts hanging over them: Aratz Bilbao Gómez, aged 34, and an Irish citizen, Naoise O'Conarain, had notices issued by France.

That night they were allowed to go. The search of their belongings, however, had laid on the table what the court order calls suspicious evidence. In a rucksack Bilbao carried between his legs, officers found information about a possible hideout with material, data on members of other police forces, dozens of number plates written down by hand, and documentation on paper and USB drives, most of them encrypted. In a cloth bag on the back seat, attributed to Grünig, there were two satellite phones capable of sending encrypted messages without mobile coverage or internet.

The subsequent analysis of those devices is what underpins the prosecution. Investigators found sketches of former ETA hideouts, including one in the area of Navarre from which the three occupants said they came, the Urbasa range. On one of the devices that could be decrypted there were photographs of training for violent acts, images with the ETA flag and the full contents of a Spanish National Police officer's phone. There were also lists of Civil Guard officers, photos of vehicles and number plates that could correspond to police cars.

## From the 2011 dissident split to a network with 300 members

Jardun Koordinadora did not come out of nowhere. According to the order issued by judge **Antonio Piña**, of the Audiencia Nacional, the organisation brings together militants from the Basque National Liberation Movement who refused to accept ETA's October 2011 decision to abandon violence. From that split emerged first Ibil, later ATA and also Jarki, which police sources describe as the arm in charge of political leadership. Aske handles mobilisations in support of prisoners. Jarki had existed since mid-2013, but nothing was known of it until 11 July 2015, thanks to the discretion and clandestine practices its members trinc.

The magistrate considers Bilbao «the main driving force» of the group, its promoter and energiser, and describes Grünig as an «active militant». Police sources put the number of active Jardun members at around **300 people** spread across the Basque Country, Navarre and southern France. Both had police records for violent acts committed in other European countries, and the judge cites flight risk and the risk of reoffending as grounds for ordering their imprisonment.

The arrest was not a pre-planned operation. Bilbao and Grünig turned up at the Irún police station on Saturday accompanied by their lawyer, after the Ertzaintza identified them at the checkpoint. The judge charges them with terrorism offences, and the court order is emphatic about their links to the network, even though the organisation itself tried to distance itself on Monday with a statement claiming the detainees had no connection to it and calling for their release.

## An Irish Saoradh member and the shadow of the New IRA

The third occupant of the car adds an international layer to the case. **Naoise O'Conarain** is listed, according to the security forces, as a member of Saoradh, a far-left Irish republican party with no parliamentary representation that some experts place close to the New IRA. That group emerged in 2012 in response to the dissolution of the IRA and has been blamed for several attacks in recent years. O'Conarain was subject to a French alert, just like Bilbao.

The connection between the Basque dissident movement and Irish republicanism is not new in police files, but this case puts it on the table with concrete names and devices. The three were travelling together in the early hours along a secondary road in Gipuzkoa, and all three had alerts from different countries. The investigation remains open, and the encrypted material that has not yet been cracked could broaden the picture.

## What the court order means, and what it does not

The imprisonment of Bilbao and Grünig is a precautionary measure, not a conviction. The remand order is based on indications: the hideout sketches, the lists of officers, the satellite phones and the training photographs. The case remains before the Audiencia Nacional, and the defence lawyers have not publicly commented, for now, on the content of the ruling. The organisation the judge links them to denies any relationship.

The case fits into an uncomfortable category for Basque politics: those who rejected ETA's end and have tried to rebuild clandestine structures without the armed group. ETA announced the definitive cessation of armed activity in October 2011 and handed over its weapons in 2017, but part of its arsenal and hideouts remained outside control. The sketches found in the car point precisely to that legacy.

The case is at the investigation stage and the facts alleged have not been proven in court. Any assessment of the detainees' guilt must be left to the ongoing judicial process.