Terrorist Antón Troitiño back in custody after arrest in London

More than a year after he was mistakenly released from prison due to a legal technicality, ETA terrorist Antón Troitiño was back in custody following his arrest in London on Friday.

Authorities in Britain also arrested Lerín Sánchez Belea, who has been wanted since 2007 for suspected links to the Basque terrorist group.

The pair was busted at around 5am at an apartment in the London neighborhood of Hounslow, where they were apparently living. They were working in Britain with false papers, police said.

Troitiño was released from prison in April 2011 when the High Court mistakenly used a controversial Supreme Court ruling granting him early release. After it determined that Troitiño, who had been in prison since 1987, needed to serve more time, the High Court issued an arrest warrant but the convicted ETA terrorist had already left the country.

The court applied the so-called Parot doctrine in calculating his sentence. Troitiño was sentenced to serve 2,500 years after he was convicted of participating in 20 murders. His sentence was reduced in 2010 to 30 years, which would have made him eligible for release in 2017.

It wasn’t immediately clear on Friday whether he will be re-sentenced for his escape.