Xabi Aretxaga free after 11 years

Being so inactive these rainy days, I missed the welcome act but the case is that this old friend, Xabi Aretxaga Llona, is again free... or as free as you can be living in the Basque Country these days.

Of Autonomist origins (activist, just like many of my friends of that time in areas like antimilitarism, social centers, counter-information or cultural diffusion), and my neighbour for some years. At some point he apparently joined ETA as "legal member" (not known to the police), being in charge of a garage where the local commando store the vehicles. Soon after all the cell were rounded up and he was too.

A common friend used to joke in the line that: "it's ok if you go to jail for killing someone or at least trying... but for washing cars?" Whatever the case, he is an old friend and a respectable activist who has spent 11 years in prison (the full sentence: not a single day reduction), in remote locations of Castile (Carabanchel, Valdemoro, Arnjuez and Valladolid), and briefly in Langraitz (Basque Country) and has finally been liberated.

I'm happy about that because, well, prison sucks and he is a free spirit. Though I'm not sure if what he finds at returning will be so great anyhow.

In any case: welcome back, ongi etorri Txabi!

Source: Gara.
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