Antonio Troitino Arranz was convicted by the Audiencia Nacional of 22 murders carried out between 1983 and 1986 as a member of ETA's Madrid unit. The sentences handed down for those crimes added up to more than 2,700 years. The largest single sentence, 2,232 years, was for the attack in Plaza de la Republica Dominicana in Madrid on July 14, 1986, in which twelve people died.
He served 24 years. In April 2011 a court released him in an error over how his time in custody was counted; the order was corrected within days, but he had already left Spain. He was found in London in 2012, fought extradition for almost five years, and was handed over to Spain in May 2017. In March 2018 the Audiencia Nacional sentenced him again, this time for rejoining ETA. He was granted conditional release on humanitarian grounds in February 2021 and died ten months later.
Troitino was born in the province of Palencia and moved to the Basque Country as a child. He was 64 when he died. He joined ETA, belonged to a unit active in the Basque Country from 1982 to 1984 and, from 1985, to the Madrid unit alongside Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos. He was arrested in January 1987, together with other members of the Madrid unit.
Two attacks in 1986 besides the one in Plaza de la Republica Dominicana are among his convictions. In April 1986, in Madrid, five people died: Juan Jose Caton, Juan Carlos Gonzalez, Alberto Alonso, Vicente Javier Dominguez and Juan Mateos Pulido. In June 1986 three people died: Francisco Casillas, Carlos Vesteiro and Ricardo Saenz de Ynestrillas. For the two attacks the Audiencia Nacional sentenced him to 378 and 348 years.
On July 14, 1986, twelve people aged 18 to 25 died in the attack in Plaza de la Republica Dominicana in Madrid: Carmelo Bella Alamo, Jose Calvo Gutierrez, Miguel Angel Cornejo Ros, Jesus Maria Freixes Montes, Jesus Jimenez Jimeno, Andres Jose Fernandez Pertierra, Jose Joaquin Garcia Ruiz, Santiago Iglesias Godino, Antonio Lancharro Reyes, Javier Esteban Plaza, Miguel Angel de la Higuera Lopez and Juan Ignacio Calvo Guerrero. About sixty people were injured.
Troitino is named in the sentence as the member of the unit who carried the attack out. Seven members of the unit were arrested the following January, and the trial was held at the Audiencia Nacional about three years after the attack. The members tried were convicted of the twelve murders, of attempted murders and of damage caused. For this attack the sentence against Troitino was 2,232 years, the largest of his sentences.
Taken together his sentences came to more than 2,700 years. Under the penal code in force when the crimes were committed, the maximum time a prisoner could serve was 30 years. He left prison in April 2011 after 24 years, having been credited with six years of pretrial detention against that maximum.
In April 2011 the third section of the Audiencia Nacional applied a Constitutional Court doctrine on double counting of time in pretrial detention and ordered his release, about six years before the date the prosecution expected. The Supreme Court then ruled in another ETA case that the reduction applies to each individual sentence and not to the 30-year maximum. Prosecutors appealed, and on the night of April 19, 2011 the same section ordered a national search for him, citing a high risk of flight. By then he had left Spain for London.
British counter-terrorism police and Spanish police arrested him and a second man in London on June 29, 2012, on extradition requests from the Audiencia Nacional. The case went through several hearings. In June 2013 a London court authorized extradition but he was provisionally released; in October 2013 the European Court of Human Rights overturned the doctrine that would have kept him in prison until 2017. He was detained again in February 2014 on a new warrant for rejoining ETA, and in October 2014 a British judge ruled an arrest order invalid. A further warrant followed.
On April 14, 2015 Westminster Magistrates' Court authorized extradition on the charge of membership of ETA, and rejected the charge concerning a false passport for lack of sufficient evidence that the offense was committed in Spain. The defense argued that the charges were politically motivated; the court rejected all the defense arguments. On April 28, 2017 the High Court in London authorized the handover and refused to extend an order that had held it back while an asylum application was pending. He was handed over on May 5, 2017, arrived in Madrid and was sent to a prison in the Madrid region by an investigating judge of the Audiencia Nacional on a charge of integration in a terrorist organization. The charge of falsifying his identity card, which the United Kingdom had not accepted, was not part of the case.
The trial before the first section of the Audiencia Nacional was held on February 19, 2018. He testified that he had received no orders or help from ETA after 2011 and that he had gone to London while awaiting the repeal of the doctrine on sentence counting. On March 16, 2018 the court found it proven that after leaving prison he had gone back to ETA "pidiendo su reintegracion en su estructura" (asking for his reintegration into its structure) and that ETA provided him with six identity documents and lodging in London. It convicted him of integration in a terrorist organization, applied the aggravating circumstance of recidivism, and sentenced him to 5 years, 11 months and 29 days, with 10 years of absolute disqualification and a period of supervised release. The prosecution had asked for 11 years. The sentence was due to end on November 23, 2022.
In October 2020 the Interior Ministry moved him to a prison in another region. In January 2021 the central supervision judge of the Audiencia Nacional granted him third-degree status on "razones humanitarias y dignidad personal" (humanitarian grounds and personal dignity). The Prosecutor's Office agreed. On January 26, 2021 the court ordered conditional release, finding "escasa peligrosidad" (low dangerousness) and a reduced capacity to commit offenses. The conditions included reporting every fifteen days, not leaving the province where he settled, taking no part in any homage or public act in his honor or that of other ETA members, and giving no interviews or statements to the media. He left prison in the Madrid region on February 5, 2021 and travelled to the Basque Country. He died in Irun on December 17, 2021, aged 64.
The 1986 crimes were judged under a 30-year maximum term. The Supreme Court's counting method, known as the Parot doctrine, applied remission to each sentence and not to the maximum, and would have set his release for 2017. In October 2013 the European Court of Human Rights ruled against retroactive use of the doctrine. His 2011 release came from the opposite counting error, a pretrial-detention credit taken from the maximum, and was reversed within about a week.
His convictions cover 22 murders; the names of two of the dead and the date and town of the June 1986 attack are not on record.
1983 to 1986: the attacks for which he was convicted of 22 murders.
April 1986: five people die in Madrid.
June 1986: three people die.
July 14, 1986: twelve people die in Plaza de la Republica Dominicana, Madrid.
January 1987: arrest with other members of the Madrid unit.
About 1989: trial at the Audiencia Nacional for the July 1986 attack.
April 2011: released after 24 years; search order issued April 19.
June 29, 2012: arrested in London.
October 2013: European Court of Human Rights overturns the counting doctrine.
April 14, 2015: British magistrates' court authorizes extradition on the membership charge.
April 28, 2017: High Court in London authorizes extradition.
May 5, 2017: handed over to Spain.
March 16, 2018: sentenced to 5 years, 11 months and 29 days.
January 2021: third-degree status on humanitarian grounds; conditional release ordered January 26.
February 5, 2021: leaves prison.
December 17, 2021: dies in Irun.