Thousands protest separatist's jail term
Sat Feb 24, 11:33 PM ET
MADRID, Spain - Thousands of people waving red-and-yellow Spanish flags protested in Madrid Saturday against a court ruling that shortened the prison sentence for one of the Basque separatist group ETA's most notorious killers.
The crowd screamed "murderer, murderer, murderer" and accused the Socialist government of being soft on ETA.
Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos has been in prison since 1987 for the deaths of 25 in a series of ETA attacks. With time off for good behavior and other benefits, he was on the verge of release last year when he was charged anew over newspaper articles he wrote from prison that were deemed as threats of new attacks.
De Juana Chaos was convicted and got 13 years, and he resumed a hunger strike that had begun months earlier. But on Feb. 12 the Supreme Court reduced the sentence to three years, saying the articles could be considered apologies for terrorism but not terrorism threats in themselves.
As he has already been in jail 17 months since the new charges were filed — more than half the sentence ordered — he is eligible for a furlough program. It is up to the government to decide whether to grant it.
His case has become a lightning rod for deep political divisions in Spain over the Socialist government's dealings with ETA. The group ended a nine-month cease-fire with a Dec. 30 bombing that killed two people at Madrid airport.
That caused the government to ditch plans for negotiations with ETA, but it refuses to rule out trying again at some point in the future. ETA and its political supporters have cited De Juana Chaos' case as an example of the kind of judicial harassment they say derailed the peace process.
ETA has killed more than 800 people since 1968 in its bid for an independent Basque state.