A former military chief of the Basque separatist group ETA, Javier Garcia Gaztelu, was sentenced to 30 years in prison Thursday for ordering the assassination of a journalist in 2000, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has eported.
The National Court found Garcia Gaztelu guilty of "a terrorist crime consisting in an attack against a person resulting in a painful death" and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. He was also ordered to pay 300,506 euros (390,000 dollars) in compensation to the family of journalist Jose Luis Lopez de la Calle, an El Mundo newspaper journalist who was shot dead in May 2000 in the Basque town of Andoain.
Garcia Gaztelu, also known by his alias "Txapote," is already serving heavy prison sentences ranging from 18 years to 82 years in prison for several other murders, including the killings of Socialist and conservative politicians.
ETA has been blamed for the deaths of 825 people in a 40-year campaign for an independent Basque homeland on the Atlantic coast of northern Spain and southwestern France.
