The historical head of ETA in France falls after 17 years of flight | Chronic

The historic leader of ETA José Antonio Urruticoetxea, alias Josu Veal, was arrested on Thursday as he was going for a cancer treatment that suffers in a hospital in France after spending 17 years in hiding, the Spanish Interior Ministry said.

Ternera, 69, subscribed to the statement issued on May 3, 2018 by the Spanish press, by which ETA announced its imminent dissolution after 60 years of armed struggle, which international observers certified the following day. Cambodian city of Cambo les Bains.

The former political leader of the former Basque armed separatist group was the subject of an arrest warrant from 2002, when he fled Spain after being summoned to testify, accused of ordered an attack against the barracks of the Civil Guard in Zaragoza, killing 11 people, including 6 children.

His arrest took place at the beginning of the day in Sallanches, France, in Haute-Savoie, as part of a joint operation of the Spanish Civil Guard and the "French General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI)", who was named after the name "Stolen childhood" for the miners who died in the Zaragoza bombing.

The Spanish Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande Marlaska, claimed that ETA had been arrested "In the street, walking, on a parking lot, we can deduce that his health is reasonable."

After his arrest, Ternera will enter a French prison to serve an eight-year prison term imposed on him in 2017 by an badociation of criminals of a terrorist nature.

The Spanish court, however, is considering seeking interim remission of Ternera so that it can be judged for cases pending against him, said Marlaska.

In addition to the case Casa Cuartel de Zaragoza, Ternera is accused of the murder of an officer of the Michelin company, in 1980; ETA funding through herriko tabernas (pro-independence bars); and for crimes against humanity.

The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, celebrated the arrest of ETA's iconic leader with recognition of the work of the security forces and a message of support to the victims. Ternera lived in the city of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, a region of the French Alps very popular for winter sports, close to the Swiss and Italian borders.

The follow-up of a former employee of the ETA leader allowed investigators to find the first clues that led him to be captured in the hospital parking lot where he received a medical treatment for the cancer of which he was a victim, according to police sources.

The name of Ternera was linked to all the negotiation attempts developed by ETA, organization of which he became the number one at the end of the 80s.

In 1989, he was arrested in Bayonne, in the south of France, and sentenced to ten years in prison by the French justice system, who then handed him over to Spain in 1996.

The Spanish national court kept him in prison until 2000, in connection with an investigation into facts that he said had been tried by the neighboring country.

During his stay in prison, Tenera was elected deputy to the Basque Parliament by Euskal Herritarrok (EH).

In 2002, the Supreme Court summoned him to testify against the attack of Casa Cuartel de Zaragoza, but he did not escape from Spain.

Clandestinity in France participated in the failure of the negotiations that initiated the government of the former socialist president José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in 2006 and after the process that led to the end of ETA.

According to the former leader of the Basque Socialists, Jesús Eguiguren, Veal was one of the architects of the end of terrorism, which is called "hero of withdrawal" in terms of conflict resolution.