Spain extends jail term for French ETA militant 02/02/2007 00:00

MADRID, Feb 2, 2007 (AFP) - A Spanish court on Friday sentenced a former commando chief of Basque separatist group ETA to 11 years in prison for ordering attacks on Spanish targets from his prison cell.

Henri Parot is already serving a 50-year prison sentence since August last year for his role in the assassination of Spanish general Victor Lago in Madrid in 1982.

Spain's supreme court, the Audiencia Nacional, said he was guilty of membership of a terrorist group but ruled out any conspiracy to prepare attacks.

The court heard during his trial on Tuesday that Parot sent letters from his prison at Cordoba in 2001 calling for attacks against "vital targets" of the Spanish state including the Audiencia Nacional, the interior ministry and the Bank of Spain.

The prosecution had demanded he be sentenced to between 25 and 29 years in prison.

Parot is also serving 26 sentences of a total of 5,145 years in prison for deadly attacks committed between 1978 and 1990 when he headed an ETA cell.

The court decision came a month after an ETA bomb killed two men from Ecuador in an attack on Madrid's Barajas airport, shattering a peace process after ETA declared a ceasefire in March.

For nearly four decades ETA has waged a bloody struggle for an independent Basque homeland comprising parts of northern Spain and southwestern France that has claimed more than 800 lives.

Copyright AFP

Subject: French news, ETA, Spain