08/02/2008
A notorious member of the armed Basque group ETA convicted of killing 25 people walked out of a Spanish prison a free man Saturday after spending 21 years behind bars.
Spanish television broadcast footage of Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos leaving a prison in Aranjuez, a town outside Madrid, accompanied by his wife and two lawyers. They all got into a black four-wheel drive vehicle and were believed to be headed to the Basque seaside city of Donostia-San Sebastian, where de Juana Chaos and his wife have bought an apartment in a neighborhood that also is home to relatives of people killed by ETA.
Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos, who has served sentences for the murder of more than two dozen people in a string of ETA attacks and separately for publishing threats of violence, was released at Saturday's 07:26 (local time) from Aranjuez prison south of Madrid, officials said.
De Juana was sentenced to 3,000 years, but the maximum a person could serve in Spain when De Juana was jailed was 30 years.
He reduced his sentence through studying while in prison and other means that allowed for a reduction in the time he served, and was due to be released in 2006.
Just before his release, however, he was sentenced to another three years in prison on further charges of writing newspaper articles deemed threatening. Juana Chaos' sentence again was reduced, this time because of time already served.
Many people, including victims of ETA attacks, are upset by the release of De Juana, who is expected to live in the Basque seaside city of Donostia-San Sebastian. Several relatives of victims of De Juana's attacks live near his home.
One demonstration planned for Saturday in Donostia-San Sebastian has been organized by a woman whose brother was killed by ETA in 2003.
Spain's government was studying legislation to ban released ETA prisoners from living near their victims in the future, Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said Friday.
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