The former head of the political wing of the Basque separatist organization ETA, Josu Ternera, was arrested again in Paris after being released by the French courts on Wednesday, this time under a request for surrender of the Spanish justice. The independence leader, arrested mid-May in France after more than 16 years on the run, was "placed in judicial detention" in the evening on instruction of the Prosecutor General of Paris, recipient of the Spanish application, according to a judicial source. In fact, Josu Ternera never found himself in the open air: the police came to get him inside the prison.
The public prosecutor's office is now to consider the request of his Spanish counterparts, who want to try Josu Ternera for his alleged role in an attack in 1987 against a barracks of the Civil Guard in Zaragoza, in northern Spain, which had made 11 dead, including five children. At the end of this detention, which can last up to 48 hours, Josu Ternera will have to be presented to the Public Prosecutor who will notify him of the request for Spanish surrender, then the Paris Court of Appeal will have to rule on his possible detention on remand. waiting for a full examination of this procedure.
He would suffer from cancer
Josu Ternera has not finished with the French justice, which still has to consider the appeals he has lodged against his two convictions by default, when he was on the run: the first to five years in prison, pronounced the 1st June 2010 then increased to seven years on appeal, and the second to eight years in prison, May 1, 2017. A procedural hearing is scheduled to be held on June 28 in Paris.
But, pending these new trials, the Paris Court of Appeal ordered Wednesday his release under judicial supervision. His lawyers Laure Heinich-Luijer and Laurent Pasquet Marinacce had argued before the court that his continued detention on remand was "incompatible with his state of health". According to the Spanish media, the former "etarra" of 68 years would suffer from cancer. He was arrested on May 16 in the parking lot of a French hospital in the Alps, where he was going to be treated.