Penitentiary Institutions, dependent on the Ministry of the Interior, announced this Wednesday the imminent transfer to Basque prisons of thirteen ETA members, including the former leaders of the terrorist group Xabier García Gaztelu, alias Txapote, —convicted of a dozen murders— and Henri Parot.
Txapote, who has been serving a sentence in Madrid's Estremera prison for more than a year, entered prison on December 15, 2005 and is serving an accumulated sentence of 30 years for murder, attack and kidnapping, among others. He will serve three quarters of the sentence in August 2023. And, according to Penitentiary Institutions in a press release, his initial classification in second degree has been resolved after the proposal of the Madrid prison Treatment Board.
He was the military chief of ETA and is considered one of the band's hardliners. He accumulates sentences that exceed 500 years in prison for, among other murders, those of Miguel Ángel Blanco; Fernando Buesa and his escort, Jorge Diez Elorza; Fernando Mujica; Gregorio Ordonez; Jose Luis Lopez de Lacalle; and two civil guards in Sallent de Gállego (Huesca).
For his part, Parot will be transferred to the penitentiary center designated by the Basque government from the León prison. He entered prison on April 7, 1990 and is serving an accumulated sentence of 41 years for murders, homicides, attacks and terrorist organization, among others. He served three quarters of his sentence in May 2018. His transfer has been resolved following the proposal of the Treatment Board.
