The suspected military chief of ETA has been arrested

Spain’s most notorious paramilitary leader, who was arrested in Northern Ireland on Monday, has been released on bail. He had turned himself in to a Belfast court after an international arrest warrant was issued against him. A convicted member of the Basque separatist group ETA, Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos has already served 21 years in jail for some 25 murders. He is now wanted in Spain on charges of “incitement to terror”. His early release last summer caused massive public uproar.

The most deadly attack involving De Juana Chaos took place in July 1986, when 12 members of the Civil Guard police were killed in a bomb blast in Madrid. ETA is blamed for more than 800 deaths in its four decades of violence for a Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France.

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tags: Northern Ireland, Terrorism