MADRID (AFP)--A judge in Spain on Tuesday issued an international arrest warrant for one of the most notorious Basque separatists, who was last reported in Ireland following his release from jail, judicial sources said.
Judge Eloy Velasco ordered an "international search and capture" of Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos after he failed to appear as ordered on Tuesday for questioning on an accusation of glorifying terrorism.
The judge received a letter sent from Belfast, Northern Ireland, by lawyers representing de Juana Chaos confirming that he wouldn't attend the hearing, the sources said.
De Juana Chaos was freed from a Spanish prison on Aug. 2 after serving 21 years for the murders of 25 people in a string of 11 attacks in the name of the Basque separatist group ETA.
Hours after his release, a letter attributed to him was read out at a gathering of his supporters in Spain's northern Basque Country.
The letter, which was greeted with cries of "Long Live ETA!", paid homage to "Txomin", the head of ETA in the 1980s, when De Juana Chaos himself was an active member.
The Association for the Victims of Terrorism filed a complaint in which it said the gathering and the letter constitute "an apology for terrorism."
Since his release, de Juana Chaos has filed a request with Spain's consulate in Dublin to renew his identity documents, in which he listed an address in the Irish capital.
Irish media reported that the address was the home of James Monaghan, one of three Irishmen convicted in their absence in Colombia in December 2004 of helping train members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
They jumped bail and returned to Ireland to evade their 17-year prison sentences.
Spanish authorities in September asked the global police body Interpol to help find de Juana Chaos.
ETA is blamed for the deaths of 824 people in its campaign of bombings and shootings to carve a Basque homeland out of parts of northern Spain and southwestern France.
The most deadly of the attacks for which de Juana Chaos was convicted was a car bombing in Madrid in 1986 which killed 12 members of the Civil Guard police force. He has never expressed remorse for his crimes.
Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http://www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=6NlmY0aFxCN%2F%2BlgX8%2BRclQ%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 11, 2008 07:34 ET (12:34 GMT)

Publié le 11 novembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones