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France relaxes control measures on Josu Ternera

2021-08-13T16:18:18.558Z


The former head of ETA moves to live in the French Basque Country after the French justice has removed the telematic control bracelet that he placed two years ago


Jose Antonio Urrutikoetxea, 'Josu Ternera', on June 15 at the Palace of Justice in Paris.CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON / EFE

The former head of ETA José Antonio Urrutikoetxea, alias

Josu Ternera

, has moved to live in the Basque-French town of Anglet after the French justice has decided to accept his request that the control measures imposed on him be relaxed, in July of 2020, by leaving him on probation, according to

La Razón

and EL PAÍS has confirmed in legal sources.

The measure, known this Friday, was adopted a month ago and has included both the withdrawal of the telematic control bracelet that was placed on it and the obligation to reside in Paris.

The only precautionary measure that is maintained is to appear three times a week at the nearest police station to his new address.

The Spanish courts have demanded the extradition of the former ETA leader for four reasons.

Until now, the French courts have already authorized to do so for two of them, but the delivery will not take place until the two cases that Urrutikoetxea still have open in France are resolved and, if convicted, serve the sentences.

More information

  • Josu Ternera assures that since 2006 he was totally disconnected from ETA

  • Josu Ternera in his first trial in France: "The end of the armed struggle came too late"

Veal was arrested on May 16, 2019 in the parking lot of the hospital in the town of Sallanches, in the French Alps, when he went to a medical consultation to treat the pathology he suffered.

The former political boss of ETA had been on the run for 17 years.

For a year he was held in the Parisian prison of La Santé, until in July last year a French court granted him probation, a situation that he now maintains with fewer precautionary control measures.

The last public appearance of the historical ETA leader was in mid-June, during the two days of hearing the first of the two trials that he has pending in France after he requested the repetition of the processes to which he was sentenced in absentia to two sentences. jail. In it, Urrutikoetxea assured that her "great life project" was to spend as much time as possible, "if possible in the Basque Country", with her children, especially with the youngest, eight years old, who was born during her stage. in hiding and which, he assures, he hardly knows.

Questions about his private life have always bothered Urrutikoetxea, who was deeply annoyed that the press revealed, last year, the address of his first residence in Paris, a central apartment lent by his supporters after obtaining probation subjected to a strict judicial control.

He expressed the same discomfort when he had to reveal, during the opening of his first trial in France, in June, his new address, as part of the protocol at the beginning of the hearings.

Religious community

As it became known then, he had moved to a religious community in the center of Paris, the Congregation of the Holy Spirit. There, he told the judge, he lived austerely in a "cell" under "very strict rules" that, among others, forced him to "share meals" with the other residents, "always at the same time at noon and in the afternoon. ”, Which sometimes complicated his routine, also marked by the restricted hours to go out on the streets that had been imposed on him within the framework of the conditions to regain his provisional release, he explained.

In any case, Ternera, 70, will have to return to Paris in the next few weeks. The judge set for September 1 the reading of the sentence for his first trial. Accused of "association of criminals for terrorist purposes" - equivalent to the crime of integration into a terrorist organization of the Spanish Penal Code - for his role in ETA between 2011 and 2013, the Prosecutor's Office has requested five years in prison and his definitive expulsion from French territory.

In addition, in mid-September he must begin his second and last pending trial before the French justice. Veal will have to serve his sentences - if he is sentenced to jail - before being extradited so that the Spanish justice can judge him for the 1987 car bomb attack against the Civil Guard headquarters in Zaragoza, which caused 11 deaths, including five children, and for the financing of ETA through the herriko taverns.

The National Court has also demanded his delivery to judge him for two other causes. One, for the indictment opened for a crime of crimes against humanity in which other former ETA chiefs such as Garikoitz Aspiazu,

Txeroki

, are also indicted

; Mikel Carrera,

Ata,

and Ángel Iriondo,

Gurbitz.

The French justice rejected this request by estimating that this crime does not exist in the Gallic penal code. The fourth cause is due to the 1980 attack in Vitoria that cost the life of Luis María Hergueta, director of the Michelin company. The French justice accepted in the first instance to grant it, but Ternera appealed the decision and the French judges have yet to rule.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-08-13

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