Iñaki de Juana Chaos

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José Ignacio de Juana Chaos, better known as Iñaki de Juana Chaos (born 1955 in Legazpia,^[1] Guipuzcoa) is an imprisoned Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) member. He was convicted in 1987 for the killing of 25 people and was sentenced to 3,000 years in prison.^[2]).He was released in 2004, however, as a result of complicated sentencing guidelines. After he was released, he was accused of making terrorist threats and entered prison again.^[3] At the end of 2006 he started a hunger strike protesting his continuing imprisonment. As of 13 February 2007, he had undergone a ninety-seven day hunger strike to protest what he feels to be unlawful imprisonment by the Spanish government.^[3] In March of 2007, he ended his hunger strike after he was moved from Hospital Doce de Octubre, a Madrid hospital to one in Guipuzcoa allowing him to serve the sentence closer to home.^[4] After he leaves the hospital he is to be placed under house arrest.^[3].

Contents 1 Background 1.1 Family 1.2 Young life 2 Activity in ETA 3 People killed by Iñaki de Juana Chaos.[5][6] 4 Prison sentence 5 Hunger strike 5.1 Domestic response 5.2 International response 6 See also 7 References

[edit] Background

[edit] Family

De Juana's father, Daniel de Juana Rubio,^[1] was born in Miranda de Ebro (Burgos province) around 1908, and was a doctor who had also been a decorated military lieutenant on the Francoist side during the Spanish Civil War. His mother, Esperanza Chaos Lloret,^[1] was born around 1924 in Tetuán, Spanish Morocco, and was the daughter of a Spanish military officer. After marrying Esperanza, Dr. de Juana, a Falangist, worked as a doctor for the Patricio Echevarría steelworks of Legazpia. De Juana's sister, Altamira de Juana, married the son of a military officer, killed by ETA gunmen in 1977.^[1] She is a paramedic in the Donostia Hospital where her brother was placed as of March 2007.

[edit] Young life

When de Juana was a child, he played football^[1] with the sons of the Guardia Civil from the barracks-residence close to his childhood home. He studied to be a paramedic, although he later decided to join the military service in Alcalá de Henares in 1977, where his part in fighting a five-day fire in Madrid was recognised with a citation.^[1] He was promoted twice in the Basque police, but in 1983, de Juana left the service and became involved in the Basque freedom movement.

[edit] Activity in ETA

In 1986, De Juana was the leader of the "Madrid Commando", a team attacking targets in the Madrid area consisting of De Juana, Juan Manuel Soares Gamboa, Idoia López Riaño and others^[Who?] According to Soares Gamboa, a former ETA member who has collaborated with the Spanish authorities, it was de Juana who chose victims and who among the commando members would shoot.

• On 9 September 1985 a car bomb exploded in plaza de la República Argentina against a Guardia Civil van. No agents were dead, but Eugene Kenneth Brown, an American passer-by died while jogging from the shock wave.
• 17 June 1986, the car of Commander Ricardo Sáenz de Ynestrillas was machine-gunned resulting in the death of the commander, a lieutenant colonel and a soldier. Soares Gamboa declared that De Juana did not know at that time about the coup-d'etat connections of Sáenz de Ynestrillas, he was simply an easy target.
• He has confessed taking part in the attack against a Guardia Civil convoy, setting up a car bomb in Plaza de la República Dominicana (14 July 1986) that killed 12 policemen in training and wounded another 45 people.

[edit] People killed by Iñaki de Juana Chaos.^[5][6]

• 12 January 1985:
  • Colonel Vicente Romero, Juan García, TEDAX Esteban del Amo.
• 29 July 1985:
  • Vice Admiral Fausto Escrigas.
• 9 September 1985:
  • Eugene Kent Brown.
• 25 April 1986:
  • Guardia Civil: Corporal Juan Mateos Pulido, Alberto Alonso Gómez, Vicente Domínguez González, Juan José Catón Vázquez, Juan Carlos González Rentero.
• 17 June 1986:
  • Commander Ricardo Sáenz de Ynestrillas, Lt Col Carlos Vesteiro Pérez, Francisco Casillas Martín.
• 14 July 1986:
  • Guardia Civil: Jesús María Freixes, Santiago Iglesias Rodino, Carmelo B. Alamo, Miguel A. Cornejo Ros, José Calvo Gutiérrez, Andrés José Fernández Pertierra, Antonio Lancharro Reyes, José Joaquín García Ruíz, Jesús Gimeno Gimeno, Juan Ignacio Calvo Guerrero, Javier Esteban, Ángel de la Higuera López.

[edit] Prison sentence

The Madrid commando was arrested on 16 January 1987 and convicted by the Spanish tribunals for murder, terrorism, and crimes committed against the Guardia Civil.^[7] He was tried under the Spanish Penal Code of 1973, however, which states that the maximum prison sentence for terrorism-related charges is thirty years in prison.^[8] While in prison he sent letters celebrating further ETA attacks. The Spanish justice system has a policy called remission, which states that time can be deducted from a prisoner's sentence for exhibiting good behaviour and for other factors. As de Juana could only legally serve thirty years in prison, with his earned remission being subtracted from the sentence, he should have been released on 25 October 2004.^[8] Once his prison term was set to expire, the government charged him again with making terrorist threats.^[9][10][11]

[edit] Hunger strike

In August 7, 2006, de Juana began a sixty-three day hunger strike, stopping when the Spanish government began to consider releasing him. The hunger strike was not supported by the ETA leadership, who had not been consulted by De Juana.^[12] ETA and its supporting movement were at the moment engaged in a ceasefire conducting to negotiation with the Spanish government. Gara took eleven days before informing of the hunger strike.^[13] On 6 October he was transferred from a Cádiz hospital to a Madrid hospital. During the sixty three days, the Spanish government intervened by tying him to a bed and force-feeding him through a nasogastric tube. The sixty-three days reflects the time where he refused to ingest food willingly. After the Audiencia Nacional (7 November) sentenced him to twelve years and seven months^[11] for the "terrorist threats" in his Gara letter in lieu of releasing him, he resumed his hunger strike.^[3] Cadena SER informed of an anonymous letter sent by an ETA prisoner criticising De Juana for disrupting the process with his "vanity."^[14] On 12 February, the Supreme Court of Spain reduced his sentence to three years for threats (not declared as terrorrist threats).^[15] On March 2nd 2007, the Spanish Government made the decision to essentially demote Iñaki to house arrest due to worries over his health.^[3] This decision was criticized by the major conservative party , Partido Popular, who denounced the move as an agreement between government and ETA and an encouragement for future prisoner hunger strikes.^[16]

[edit] Domestic response

During the first weekend in February 2007, between 200,000 and 1,500,000 people according to central governmental sources or regional governmental sources, respectively, marched in Madrid with the stated purpose of protesting against the release of De Juana, support ETA victims and also accusing Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of surrendering to terrorism.^[3][17]

According to several polls, the majority of Spaniards opposed De Juana's release.^[18]

[edit] International response

• Sinn Féin, a political party in Ireland and Britain, have publicly supported de Juana in his mission and have organised demonstrations in support of De Juana.^[19]

[edit] See also

• Bobby Sands, a Provisional IRA prisoner whose death during a hunger-strike affected the perception of the positions of the IRA and British Government in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.
• Juan José Crespo Galende started in 14 March 1981 a hunger strike with other members of GRAPO imprisoned as terrorists. He advanced to a thirst strike on 5 June and died on 19 June.^[20]
• José Manuel Sevillano and other GRAPO members started a hunger strike. Sevillano died on 25 May 1989.^[20]

[edit] References