Ignacio Gracia Arregui

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Ignacio Gracia Arregui (born November 30, 1955 in Rentería , Basque Country , Spain ) is a leader of the Marxist-Leninist separatist Basque underground movement Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Spain, known under the battle name Iñaki de Rentería .

Life

Gracia Arregui joined the ETA as an adolescent during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco to end the suppression of Basque culture initiated by Franco and subsequently took on the name of Iñaki de Rentería. After Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez took office and the amnesty guaranteed by him , he ended his underground struggles in 1977, but soon resumed them.

In the following years he received training in guerrilla warfare in Algeria and in 1980 he became one of the military leaders of the ETA. In 1981 and 1982 he was arrested in Spain for minor offenses , but both times released shortly afterwards. Having lived illegally in France since 1987 , he was probably appointed Supreme Leader of ETA in 1992 after a power vacuum in the organization had occurred after the arrest of 24 suspected ETA leaders in the southern French Basque town of Bidart .

In 1995, he shall set up an assassination attempt on King Juan Carlos I have arranged. According to ETA experts, his authority as head of ETA's military operations was only challenged by the organization's alleged chief ideologist, Mikel Antza .

In February 2000, he was by a court in France in absentia for conspiracy , weapons possession and forgery to a term of imprisonment convicted of six years. He was also arrested at his Bidart home in September 2000, just two days after 20 other suspected ETA leaders were arrested in a large-scale police operation. After further convictions, he was imprisoned in France until 2008 and, after his subsequent extradition , in Spain until 2010.

In May 2011, he was arrested again by order of the Spanish Supreme Court. He is accused of kidnapping the prison officer José Antonio Ortega Lara in 1996. Ortega Lara was in the hands of his kidnappers for 532 days, making it the longest kidnapping in ETA history.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ETA terrorist arrested - suspected of the longest kidnapping . In: Comprendes. The Spain Magazine, May 27, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Gracia Arregui, Ignacio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Iñaki de Rentería (battle name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION alleged member of the top management of the Basque terrorist organization ETA
DATE OF BIRTH November 30, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Rentería , Basque Country , Spain