• Justice The Court confirms the prosecution of 'Josu Ternera' for the attack on the Zaragoza barracks

  • Chronicle 'Operation blanching Veal', the ETA boss who ordered so much to be killed

he former head of ETA José Antonio Urrutikoetxea, alias 'Josu Ternera', enjoys new prison benefits granted by the French Justice. Specifically, according to

La Razón

and Europa Press has been able to confirm in sources in his environment, the telematic bracelet with which he was controlled has been withdrawn since he remains on provisional freedom.

After this prison relief, Urrutikoetxea has moved with his family from his residence in Paris - where he had lived since it was agreed in July 2020 that he would remain under house arrest with an electronic bracelet for health reasons - to the town of Anglet, near the border with the Basque Country. Despite the withdrawal of that telematic control, he is still subject to precautionary measures, for which he must appear three times a week at police stations.

The 70-year-old ETA member was arrested in May 2019 in Sallanches, in the French Alps, after spending almost 17 years in hiding.

In June of that year, the French Court of Appeals released him provisionally for health reasons, but when he was leaving the La Santé prison he was detained after the French authorities made sure that the National Court required him for various reasons.

Precisely in July, the Criminal Chamber of the National Court confirmed his prosecution for one of them, the attack committed in 1987 against the Zaragoza barracks, which left eleven dead, including six children.

This prosecution came after the Paris Court of Cassation authorized in November 2020 its final delivery to Spain for this attack.

The French court rejected in its decision an appeal presented by the defense of Josu Tenera against a ruling of the Chamber of Instruction of the Court of Appeals of Paris that ordered his repatriation.

The Court of Cassation also agreed to the final delivery of Josu Ternera to Spain for the cause on the financing of the terrorist organization through the 'herriko tabernas', while the Court of Appeals gave the green light to his extradition for the murder of the then Michelin director Luis María Hergueta on June 25, 1980 in Vitoria.

Regarding that murder, the judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz annulled his prosecution in May, with the support of the Prosecutor's Office, when he verified that on that date Josu Ternera was not part of the political-military ETA, who claimed that attack.

The National High Court also claimed the ETA for a case on crimes against humanity in which other former leaders of the terrorist organization are being prosecuted, but in this case the French authorities denied the return to Spain.

The delivery to Spain will have to wait, however, for the last trial that Josu Ternera has scheduled in France to be held in September, after which the French authorities will have to decide whether to temporarily hand over the former head of ETA.

That hearing that was to be held in the Court of Appeals - previously scheduled for February 2021 - for events that occurred between 2002 and 2005, was postponed as several witnesses could not attend due to health reasons.

For these events, 'Josu Ternera' was sentenced in the first instance to five years in prison, which became seven years on appeal, on charges of 'association of terrorist criminals'.

However, as he was sentenced 'in absentia', he requested to be tried again in person.

His prints appeared in two ETA pockets found in 2002 in Lourdes and Villeneuve-sur-Lot (Lot-et-Garonne), as well as in a vehicle.

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