ETA fugitive wanted by Spain arrested in London

Police in London have arrested a member of the  Basque separatist movement, ETA, wanted in Spain on outstanding charges, according to Spanish officials.

An unnamed Spanish official at the interior Ministry said that Antonio Troitino, 56, had been arrested under “a Spanish police warrant”. He had been released from prison in England in October by a European rights court ruling which cut the jail time for several ETA convicts in 2013.

Troitino had been on conditional release from prison, but Spanish courts demanded Britain send him back and maintained an extradition warrant for him.

Troitino was a member of ETA’s unit in Madrid, believed to be responsible for some of the group’s worst atrocoties and was arrested in 1987 and sentenced to more than 2,000 years for 22 killings.

He was released in April 2011 following a techcnical hitch and he subsequently went on the run to London. He was re-arrested the following year.

ETA has been blamed for over 800 deaths during a campaign of bombings and shootings  in northern Spain and southwestern France.