[ad_1]
A Paris court on Wednesday acquitted former Basque separatist leader Josu Ternera on charges of involvement in a terrorist organization, citing insufficient evidence in the case.
The decision overturns a conviction and an eight-year prison sentence handed down in 2017 when Ternera, a historic leader of the ETA group seeking independence for the Basque Country, was tried in absentia as he fled the authorities.
Ternera, whose real name is Jose Antonio Urrutikoetxea Bengoetxea, led ETA from 1977 to 1992 and is believed to have initiated a combined car bomb and shootout strategy in Spain in the 1980s.
The group’s attacks have left at least 850 dead in northern Spain and southwest France, an area considered to be the Basque homeland. The group was formally dissolved in 2018.
In hiding since 2002, Ternera was convicted in absentia in France for clandestinely participating in ETA operations from 2011 to 2013.
He was arrested in France in 2019 in a hospital in the French Alps where he was due to undergo an operation.
Ternera, who appeared in court, will face judges again later this month on similar charges, of participating in ETA from 2002 to 2005, for which he had previously been convicted on appeal by absentia to seven years in prison in 2010.
The two prison sentences having been handed down in his absence, he was able to request a new trial for both.
(With AFP)
Source link
