For the past four months the Spanish Government has attempted to balance the risk of creating a martyr out of a murderer against the most basic requirement of justice that murderers serve out their prison terms. Yesterday that balanced tipped in favour of the criminal.
Iñaki de Juana Chaos, the convicted Eta terrorist, was released from a Madrid prison at least a year before the end of his sentence and 114 days into a bitterly divisive hunger strike. He has not won the unconditional freedom that he demanded; he will be under house arrest until his sentence technically expires. He thus retains a pretext to continue his hunger strike and indulge what has been called his “martyr complex” if he wishes. Meanwhile, his protest