The publication by The Times of an interview and photograph of a convicted Eta killer on hunger strike caused fresh upheaval in Spain yesterday, threatening to plunge the Socialist government into crisis.

The prison service started an investigation and the Conservative opposition claimed that the interview must have been conducted with the “complicity” of the Government. The British Embassy in Madrid received calls from Spaniards unhappy that a British newspaper had interviewed a terrorist held in a Spanish prison.

Conservative newspapers expressed anger that the fate of an Eta prisoner had become an international issue. “Eta has scored a major propaganda coup with the international distribution of photographs of the emaciated hunger-striking prisoner, (Iñaki) de Juana Chaos, ABC said on its front page.

The Government was also facing the prospect of further protests by Eta prisoners in Spain and France, who threatened a week of action, including sit-downs and fasts, in support of a general amnesty.

De Juana was convicted in 1987 of 25 killings in one of the Basque separatist group’s bloodiest campaigns. He was sentenced to 3,000 years in prison, but under new rules that have outraged many Spaniards, was due for release in October 2004. To prevent his release, the Government unearthed two articles he wrote in a newspaper and charged him with making terrorist threats. He was then sentenced to a further 12 years and 7 months, prompting his hunger strike. Spain’s Supreme Court is due to hear an appeal on Monday.

Three decades after the return of democracy, the topic of Eta and the Basque country in general remains politically explosive. The gang’s bombings and murders - more than 800 in 40 years - would be emotive enough. But analysts said the group had a special significance in Spain, acting as a proxy for a range of unresolved issues that have festered since the 1936 civil war.

For conservative Spaniards, Eta is not just a terrorist gang, but a symbol of everything that is wrong with the country. With its Marxist-Leninist ideology, violent methods and separatist goals, it reminds conservatives of the very conditions that led General Francisco Franco to overthrow the Leftist Government 70 years ago. In particular, Eta raises the spectre of the break-up of Spain, with Basques and Catalans clamouring for autonomy from Madrid.

“The Spanish Right are absolutely neuralgic about this issue,” says David Mathieson, an analyst at Fride, a think-tank in Madrid. “It goes back to the causes of the civil war.”

Perhaps for that reason, conservative Spaniards tend to see the hand of their old enemy everywhere. In the outside world, people take for granted that the Madrid bombings of March 2004 were the work of Islamic extremists. In Spain, many remain convinced that Eta was somehow to blame.

The case of de Juana also feeds into powerful undercurrents in the Basque country. Shackled to his hospital bed and looking defiant over his protruding ribcage, his image plays to deep-seated feelings of Basque victimhood. The region was punished by General Franco for opposing him in the civil war: the Basque language was suppressed and the autonomy enjoyed by the region since Roman times withdrawn.

Eta’s political supporters had been on the back foot after the Madrid airport bomb in December that halted peace talks. Basque nationalists were furious that the peace process had been abandoned and Eta’s allies seemed increasingly isolated. De Juana’s situation has now given them a cause to rally round, and on Monday supporters were distributing posters of his image with the words “Spanish justice” underneath.

But many ordinary people are simply aghast at the prospect that de Juana could walk free after serving the equivalent of eight months for each murder.

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“Dear Editor, you dug your dirty hands in the infected wound of a foreign country, for business, for money. Let’s hope you get infected Luis, Madrid

“It is up to him if he eats or dies. I really do not care. This terrorist will have all the human rights that he denied to his victims. Manuel, A Coruna

“I really regret not to have a Prime Minister like Margaret Thatcher. She knew how to manage a terrorist hunger strike. Instead we have a mediocre guy who is negotiating with terrorists. Try to imagine George Bush negotiating with Bin Laden, considering him a “man of peace” and forgetting the World Trade Center. That’s what we are living in Spain. Ana, Lugo

“Very sorry that a newspaper like The Times acts as a loudspeaker for a terrorist. If he has decided to die in a hunger strike it is his choice. Did you ask him if he gave any opportunity to his 25 victims? Ana, Vigo

“The problem in Spain is that our democracy is still young and feels it needs to prove itself. Take for instance the death of Bobby Sands and his companions or the flagrant public shooting of IRA suspects in Gibraltar by British officers. No one questioned British democracy back then. Our democracy should be far above chapters like this. If the man wants to starve to death, it is his choice, our democracy is doing more than enough by keeping him alive in a hospital. Alvaro, Escorial

“I hope no one will forget that this assassin is in that hospital’s bed because he wants to. He is losing weight because he wants to. Ric, Madrid

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