The Provincial Court of Bizkaia has ratified the summons as investigated of four people, including the former mayor of Zaldibar for EH Bildu between 2011 and 2018, Arantza Baigorri. The decision confirms the ruling of the Court of Durango in the case opened over alleged crimes against town planning and land use provisions linked to the Zaldibar landfill, which collapsed on February 6, 2020, and in whose accident the workers Alberto Sololuze and Joaquín Beltrán died.
In an order that is already final, the court has ordered the free dismissal of the proceedings regarding another five people who had also been called to testify as investigated by Court No. 1 of the Civil and Criminal Investigation Section of the Durango Court of Instance in this procedure.
With this resolution, the Biscayan Audiencia only partially modifies the order of the Durango court, which had initially ordered the summons as investigated of nine people in total within this separate piece.
In this case, facts are being analyzed that could fit into crimes against town planning and land use provisions and that stem from another investigation focused on possible environmental crimes related to the same Zaldibar landfill, whose collapse on February 6, 2020 caused the death of two operators.
To date, the only completed judicial procedure is the one relating to the death of these two workers, which ended by means of a plea agreement under which three persons responsible for the company holding the landfill were convicted of reckless homicide.
Appeal and dismissal for five investigated
The nine people who had been summoned as investigated for alleged crimes against town planning and land use provisions appealed the order of the Court of Durango to the Audiencia of Bizkaia. This has now upheld the appeals of five of them and has ordered the free dismissal of the proceedings regarding these people, which prevents the procedure from continuing against them.
The court finds that, in these cases, there would have been an “absolute breakdown of the right of defense” in that their being declared as investigated persons was ordered once the legal period for the investigation had been exhausted and without their lawyers having any judicial ruling at their disposal up to dates on which “they no longer had the possibility of setting out a defensive strategy, of challenging the sources of accusation, of proposing exculpatory evidence, and, above all, of having knowledge of the criminal accusation made against their clients.”
“Ultimately, we understand that the course of the proceedings has caused the radical impairment of their constitutional right, which means that their being called to testify in their capacity as investigated persons is not valid because it violates their fundamental right,” concludes the Audiencia de Bizkaia.
The former mayor and three others will continue to be investigated
In contrast, with regard to the other four people, among whom is the former councilor of Zaldibar between 2011 and 2018 for EH Bildu, the Vizcayan court dismisses their appeals and maintains the decision of the Juzgado de Durango to take their statements as investigated persons for the facts that are the subject of these proceedings.
As the court reasons, the procedural position of these four people is different, since their possible involvement became known from an expanded report from the Ertzaintza received on 16 June 2025 and, at the time the court ordered their summons as investigated persons, in their case the legal period for the investigation had not yet been exhausted.
The order of the Juzgado de Durango also temporally defined the scope of the criminal investigation and expressly declared the facts prior to 2015 to be time-barred, a point that the Audiencia de Bizkaia maintains and does not reverse in its ruling.