The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed on Thursday the conditional release of Basque detainees Jakes Esnal and Ion Parot, both 71, after a one-year probationary period of house arrest, said a judicial source at AFP.
“The Sentence Enforcement Division of the Paris Court of Appeal today confirmed two judgments of the Paris Sentence Enforcement Court competent in terrorism matters” which had granted these two former members of the separatist organization ETA of "measures of house arrest under electronic surveillance for one year, probationary for conditional release for a period of ten years", detailed this source.
“Serious efforts at social rehabilitation”
Ion Parot and Jakes Esnal, imprisoned for 32 years, were arrested in 1990, then sentenced in 1997 to life imprisonment alongside other members of ETA's "roving commando", also known as the "Argala" commando, in particular responsible for the attack on the Zaragoza garrison, in northern Spain, in 1987, which killed 11 people, including six children.
The organization announced its dissolution in 2018 after more than forty years of armed struggle for the independence of the Basque Country.
A total of 853 deaths are attributed to ETA.
Julien Brel, Ion Parot's lawyer, considered that the court had taken into account "his serious efforts for social rehabilitation" and "the absence of risk of recidivism", in view of "the considerable political evolution" in the country. Basque.
These elements "already existed for a long time" but justice had to "resolve to consider that the peace process" in the Basque Country was a reality, he told AFP.
Sixth request for adjustment of sentence from Ion Parot
This was Ion Parot's sixth request for sentence adjustment.
He had obtained a green light at first instance, in June, but the national anti-terrorist prosecution had appealed.
He will be accommodated “on the side of Bayonne” and will resume a professional activity “of laborer, part-time”, specified his lawyer.
For Jakes Esnal, this was the second development request.
He had obtained a green light at first instance in May 2020, a decision which the Paris Court of Appeal reversed a few months later, but the Court of Cassation had quashed this judgment in March 2022, sending the case back to the court. call.
“We are very satisfied,” reacted his lawyer Maritxu Paulus Basurco to AFP, explaining that his client would also resume a professional activity, without further details “to preserve his privacy and that of his employer”.
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