ETA assassin turns his back on terror; starts road to redemption

"I believe I have taken steps," begins the letter that Luis María Lizarralde, a jailed ETA member, sent the prison director to let him know he was severing ties with the terrorist group and condemning the use of violence for political means.

Now, Lizarralde, who is serving time for two assassinations and an attempted third, has been granted a personalized regime that allows him to leave the penitentiary every weekday to attend training courses. He is the sixth ETA member to be awarded this condition of semi-freedom since the government initiative began last summer.

The "steps" that Lizarralde enumerated in his letter are essentially the same taken by the more than 20 jailed ETA members whom the Interior Minister has transferred to the Nanclares de Oca prison, in the Basque province of Álava, from penitentiaries further from home.

The end to the so-called "dispersion" of prisoners has historically been one of ETA's demands, although the government began using it as a way to break the 750 ETA inmates' strict group discipline following the failed talks of 2006. It did so by toughening the sentence conditions for the more radical prisoners and softening those of inmates who were more favorable to the end of violence.

Lizarralde has broken his ties with the ETA prisoner group and no longer participates in its acts of protest. He has also criticized terrorist violence, and has written to his victims' families to apologize.

"My motive: to oppose the use of [ETA] prisoners to justify the continuation of the armed struggle," he wrote. "I have left off with ETA's lawyers [...]. All this comes at a personal cost; some colleagues are turning their backs on me here and in my village."

The ETA gunman was extradited to Spain by Uruguay in 1994 to face murder charges for the death of Civil Guard Luis Miranda, whose vehicle Lizarralde and two other ETA members gunned down on July 5, 1981. Another police officer was seriously wounded. Lizarralde was also found guilty of the murder of Colonel Luis de la Parra Urbaneja one month earlier. His sentences end in May 2022. "This convict has been showing a positive evolution that resulted in a break with the group," says the court ruling that allows Lizarralde out every day to study.