The Spanish Supreme Court sparked uproar yesterday after it slashed a sentence against a Basque separatist killer on hunger strike from 12 years to three.

Iñaki de Juana Chaos, who was sentenced to 3,000 years in jail in 1987 for 25 murders, could now go free in less than a year because of the time he has served on remand.

Groups representing Eta’s 800 victims were outraged by the decision and were planning to mount large street protests. The powerful Association of Victims of Terrorism, which had wanted the Supreme Court to raise de Juana’s sentence to 96 years, blamed the Government of José Luis RodrÍguez Zapatero for its decision.

“This decision is a heavy blow for the victims and Spanish society,” the AVT said, calling it “another step in the surrender to Eta begun by Zapatero. The majority of Spaniards cannot believe that a murderer who has served only 18 years for killing 25 people, who has no remorse and glorifies terrorism, will continue to help Eta reach its objectives”.

Yesterday’s ruling placed the dilemma about de Juana’s fate back in the hands of Mr Zapatero. The Government-controlled Prison Service must now decide how much of his remaining sentence de Juana should serve, and whether he should be allowed to spend it at home.

Despite the favourable ruling it was not immediately clear if de Juana would abandon his hunger strike, which has already lasted 99 days. In an unprecedented interview with The Times last week, de Juana said that he would not accept anything short of immediate and unconditional freedom.

The politically fraught decision split the Supreme Court, with four of the 13 judges reportedly supporting a complete annulment of the sentence and at least another two supporting the request by Eta’s victims to raise it to 96 years.

De Juana had been sentenced to 3,000 years, but under Spain’s sentencing rules was due to be released almost two years ago after serving his time for the 25 killings.

Last November he was sentenced to a further 12 years and seven months after judges decided that two articles penned from his jail cell contained veiled terrorist threats.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that the articles did not constitute terrorist threats, but rather glorification of terrorism, which carried a lower sentence.

De Juana is being force-fed in a secure hospital room to keep him alive. Doctors believe that he could die in a matter of weeks, and the Government feared that handing Eta a martyr figure would give the four-d-ecade Basque conflict a new lease of life.

The case of de Juana has divided Spain, where many are furious that a man originally sentenced to decades in prison could be out after 20 years. Others have said that the justice system had been blatantly manipulated for political ends by the Government, which had feared a public outcry if he were released.

Javier Rojo, the head of Spain’s Senate and a member of the ruling Socialist party, had called the 12-year sentence disproportionate and hoped that the Supreme Court would “do justice” by reducing it.

Eta’s outlawed political wing, Batasuna, was in Belfast yesterday, meeting Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, who has been advising the Basque group on its approach to the peace process. After meeting Arnaldo Otegi, the leader of Batasuna, Mr Adams called for fresh talks between the sides to resolve the four-decade conflict. “We strongly believe that Batasuna are committed to conflict resolution,” he said.

A political weapon

- The record for the longest hunger strike is held by Bhupendra Kumar Dutta, who fasted for 78 days in 1917 in protest against British rule in India. He survived and lived until 1979

Irish republican prisoners began a hunger strike led by Bobby Sands on March 1, 1981, that was scheduled to last until October 3. Several of them starved to death. Sands died after 66 days of fasting

- Barry Horne, a British animal rights activist, went on four hunger strikes, the longest of which lasted 68 days and left him partially blind. He died on the last, in 2001, while in prison

- Mahatma Gandhi engaged in two famous hunger strikes against changes to the Indian Constitution. Neither lasted more than 21 days

- Suffragettes frequently went on hunger strike in British prisons. The first, Marion Dunlop, fasted for 91 hours in 1909

- Guantanamo Bay prisoners went on hunger strike in 2002 against conditions in the camp

- In 1980, the Welsh nationalist politician Gwynfor Evans threatened to go on hunger strike to hold the Conservative Government to its election promise to set up a Welsh-language TV channel. The Government capitulated

Source: Times archives, BBC

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