Former ETA leader Josu Ternera released in France, Spain is outraged and demands his extradition
The former leader of the Basque terrorist group ETA, Josu Antonio, in Paris on October 2, 2020. AFP - JOEL SAGET
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
The absolution of Josu Antonio Urrutikoetxea Bengoetxea, alias Josu Ternera, in France does not leave indifferent in Spain.
He is indeed one of the most striking faces of the Basque separatist organization ETA, dissolved in 2018 and which in 60 years of terrorist activity has been responsible for the death of 864 people.
His extradition is eagerly awaited, but he still has to respond one last time to French justice.
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With our correspondent in Madrid,
François Musseau
For years, several Courts of the National Court in Madrid, the main body dealing with terrorist cases in Spain, have been waiting to try Josu Ternera.
Suffice to say that the judicial trajectory in France of the one who was one of the historical leaders of
the separatist armed organization ETA
is of primary interest here.
First suspected of having continued his links with the organization from 2011 to 2013, Josu Ternera was acquitted in France, but at 70, he has not yet come out of his legal disputes: he must still answer for an accusation of belonging to ETA between 2002 and 2005. And Spain, unanimously, hopes that the extradition can finally take place and that a great trial will take place against this man.
The one who fled to France at the end of the 1970s was then arrested, released on parole, before becoming a separatist deputy in the Basque Parliament, to again spend 17 years in hiding in France ...
before his arrest in 2019
.
Victims' associations speak of Josu Ternera as one of the most bloodthirsty ETA leaders, many have nicknamed him the “
Basque butcher
”.
He was leading the Basque terrorist organization when his worst massacre occurred: the murder of 21 people in a Barcelona supermarket in 1987, including 4 children.
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To read also:
ETA: the historic mea culpa of an endangered organization
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