Europe rights court rejects Spain's 'Parot Doctrine,' orders release of ETA militant

The European Court of Human Rights on Monday ratified its judgment against Spain for applying the so-called "Parot Doctrine" to a member of the Basque separatist group ETA. Ines del Rio was condemned to a total of 3,828 years in prison in 1987 for 24 murders and her part in terrorist attacks in Madrid in which 12 Civil Guards lost their lives. The Parot Doctrine was introduced in 2006 by the Spanish Supreme Court and establishes that reductions on a sentence for work carried out in prison, good behavior, etc. should be applied on the total years given in the prisoner's original sentence rather than the maximum legal time allowed in prison, which is 30 years as established by the penal code of 1973. Many ETA prisoners were originally handed sentences totaling hundreds or even thousands of years for their crimes and the current application of the Parot Doctrine means time off for good behavior will not stop them serving the maximum 30 years in jail. Now this finding will almost certainly force Spain to release several ETA prisoners as the country is seen has having broken article 5.1 (the right to freedom and security) of the European code. That means that Del Rio and around 60 other ETA prisoners who have committed multiple murders will soon be out of prison after having served in some cases around one year in jail for each victim if the Spanish government accepts the judgment of the European Court of Human rights. As the finding is definitive with no room for appeal, the Spanish government will have to use "judicial engineering," in the words of Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz, to delay the release of the prisoners who could benefit. Meanwhile, the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT) asked Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to ignore the sentence with the AVT President Angela Pedraza commenting that she lamented "that the European Court in Strasbourg is inclined towards impunity."