Iñaki de Juana Chaos, known in court records as José Ignacio de Juana Chaos, belonged to the Madrid unit of ETA and was convicted by Spain's Audiencia Nacional of 25 murders committed in eleven attacks in Madrid between 1985 and January 1987. Twelve of the dead were Guardia Civil agents killed on July 14, 1986. He was arrested in January 1987 and tried at the Audiencia Nacional about three years after the July 1986 attack. The sentences ran to about 3,000 years in total. Under the 1973 Penal Code, which governed his case, they were merged into a single maximum term of 30 years, and he shortened it further through sentence reductions earned by university study.
His release fell due in the autumn of 2004, but it was blocked, first by a challenge to the calculation of his reductions and then, in January 2005, by a new case over two articles he had written for a Basque newspaper. The Audiencia Nacional convicted him of terrorist threats in November 2006, and the Supreme Court cut that sentence to three years in February 2007. He left prison on August 2, 2008 after about 21 years in custody. Within three months Spain had issued a European arrest warrant over a letter read in his name at an event held to mark his release. He was arrested in Belfast in November 2008, was ordered extradited in 2010, and left Northern Ireland while his appeal was pending. He has been sought in Venezuela since 2015, and in June 2026 a judge of the Audiencia Nacional was still asking the Venezuelan authorities for information about him.
De Juana Chaos was born in Legazpia, in the province of Gipuzkoa in the Basque Country. He was 52 when he was released in 2008 and 54 in the spring of 2010. He had been a Basque police officer for four years. By 2008 ETA had been blamed for more than 820 deaths.
His place in the organization was the Madrid unit, the group that carried out a series of attacks in the capital from 1985 until its members were arrested in January 1987. He took part in eleven attacks in which 25 people died, and the Audiencia Nacional convicted him of those deaths. Antonio Troitiño, also involved in the July 14, 1986 attack, was among the unit's members convicted.
One attack in Madrid killed one person, and for it he received 489 years. In April 1986 five Guardia Civil agents died in a second attack in the city, for which a sentence of 378 years was imposed. A third, in June 1986, killed three members of the armed forces: the army commander Ricardo Sáenz de Ynestrillas, Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Besteiro Pérez and the soldier Francisco Casillas Martín. A sentence of 348 years followed for that attack.
The attack of July 14, 1986 was the fourth. Those four account for 21 of the 25 deaths.
On July 14, 1986, twelve Guardia Civil agents were killed in Madrid. They were young men aged between 19 and 26, and dozens of other people were injured. De Juana Chaos was one of the ETA members who took part in the attack, and he was later convicted of the twelve deaths.
The twelve who died were Carmelo Bella Álamo, 22, from Granja de Torrehermosa; José Calvo Gutiérrez, 19, from Barcelona; Miguel Ángel Cornejo Ros, 24, from Burjasot; Jesús María Freixes Montes, 21, from Lleida; Jesús Jiménez Jimeno, 20, from Cascante del Río; Andrés José Fernández Pertierra, 20, from Málaga; José Joaquín García Ruiz, 21, from Merindad de Valdivieso; Santiago Iglesias Godino, 20, from Hondón de las Nieves; Antonio Lancharro Reyes, 21, from Monesterio; Javier Esteban Plaza, 26, from La Bodera in Guadalajara; Miguel Ángel de la Higuera López, 20, from Alfacar; and Juan Ignacio Calvo Guerrero, 25, from La Pola de Gordón.
The unit was broken up in January 1987. On January 16, in an operation in Madrid, six ETA members were detained, De Juana Chaos among them, and the unit was dismantled.
The trial took place at the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid roughly three years after the July 1986 attack, in 1989. The members of the unit who stood trial were convicted of the twelve completed murders, of attempted murders and of the damage caused. A judgment of October 7, 1987 concerned his membership of the organization.
The sentences handed down in the attack cases came to about 3,000 years, and a consolidated figure of 2,232 years was described as the largest imposed in Spain up to that time. The European arrest warrant issued in 2008 summed up his record in these words: he "served 21 years in prison for having committed 25 offences of murder and one offence of threat."
The totals in the thousands of years did not determine the time he served. The 1973 Penal Code set a maximum of 30 years of imprisonment, and under the practice then followed, all of a convicted person's sentences were merged into one term equal to that maximum. Reductions earned through study and other concessions then counted toward it; in his case they came from university study. A provisional count put his redeemed days at 4,350, more than eleven years. A 1995 code raised the ceiling to 40 years and a 2003 reform raised it for terrorism cases.
In 2006 the Supreme Court changed the method for other prisoners in its ruling in the case of Henri Parot, ordering that reductions be applied to each sentence separately rather than to the 30-year maximum. A fellow member of the Madrid unit, Inés del Río, was among those whose release dates were recalculated under that approach; her complaint was before the European Court of Human Rights in 2012. Under the 1973 system he served about 18 years for the murders, and the threats sentence added to his time in custody.
By his own account he had served his sentence on October 25, 2004. The Audiencia Nacional, however, refused to approve the final calculation of his reductions, and in October 2004 it appealed some of them, which postponed his release. A release set for February 2005 was halted in January 2005, when a new case began.
The case concerned two texts published in a Basque newspaper on 1 and December 30, 2004. The prosecution said they named a member of the Audiencia Nacional and five prison directors, with their workplaces, and amounted to veiled terrorist threats. On 10 or January 11, 2005 Judge Fernando Grande-Marlaska charged him with membership of a terrorist organization and with terrorist threats and ordered him held in custody. The prosecution sought 96 years. In June 2005 another Audiencia Nacional judge, Santiago Pedraz, shelved the case, finding that the writings supported a Basque political movement and not ETA, and that the threats were not proven; the court's appeals section overturned that decision and ordered a trial, saying the articles boasted about and exalted his ETA membership.
On October 27, 2006 the prosecutor withdrew the membership charge and asked for 13 years for threats. In its judgment of November 8, 2006 the Audiencia Nacional acquitted him of membership of a terrorist organization, treating that conduct as a permanent offense already punished, and convicted him of terrorist threats under article 572.1.3 of the Penal Code, with the aggravating circumstance of recidivism. The sentence was 12 years and 7 months, 20 years of absolute disqualification and €12,000 in civil liability to each of the six people named. The court rejected the argument that the writings were protected expression.
The Supreme Court ruled on February 26, 2007. It found no offense in one of the two texts and, in the other, threats under article 170.1 in concurrence with glorification of terrorism under article 578. Four judges dissented. The sentence was cut to three years, and because he had already been held for more than two years on the case, the shorter term brought his release close.
On August 7, 2006 De Juana Chaos began a hunger strike to demand his release. On September 14, 2006 the Audiencia Nacional authorized measures to protect his life, and the full criminal chamber, by 12 votes to 4, maintained his provisional detention without bail when the prosecutor proposed a less strict regime.
After the Supreme Court ruling, the court responsible for prison supervision issued an order on March 1, 2007 confirming the prison treatment board's proposal for a second-degree classification, with monitoring. The order allowed him to be at home under electronic monitoring, with outings requiring prior authorization, and the court stated that this was not a prison benefit. The arrangement divided Spanish politics and set off the biggest crisis of the government's term to that point. A second order on June 6, 2007 sent him back to a prison in the Madrid region, where he remained in second degree. The strike ended in practice on June 9, 2007.
In the weeks before his release he began a third hunger strike, which he said was a protest against harassment by the media and by judicial and prison authorities. On the morning of Saturday August 2, 2008 he left a prison in the Madrid region after 21 years in custody, with two lawyers. He was freed on good behavior under the penal code, with reductions earned through university study, and he had not expressed remorse for the killings.
His release drew objections from victims' associations, which called it an affront to the victims. About 200 people attended a demonstration by the Association of Victims of Terrorism in Madrid. Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said that contempt toward him was understandable but that the law allowing his release had to be respected.
Also on August 2, 2008, an event was held in San Sebastián to celebrate his release. De Juana Chaos did not attend, but a letter in his name was read. The Spanish warrant alleged that it urged continued violence and praised a former ETA leader. Judge Eloy Velasco of the Audiencia Nacional summoned him on October 16, 2008 to testify as a suspect; he did not appear. On November 11, 2008 Spain issued a European arrest warrant for the offense of public justification of terrorist actions, his own and those of others.
On November 17, 2008 he was arrested in Belfast after presenting himself at a court there. The first hearing was adjourned because no Spanish interpreter was available. On March 10, 2009 the county court for the Belfast division, in the case of the Kingdom of Spain against De Juana Chaos, held that he was an "accused person" and that the alleged offense was extraditable, since the words complained of could properly be considered as an offense under section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006. In March 2010 the judge, Burgess, ordered his extradition, saying that, absent evidence to the contrary, the Belfast court should have confidence in the Spanish justice system and rejecting the defense argument that the case was political and breached his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. His lawyers called the charge fabricated and said it rested on press reports. He was on bail pending an appeal to the High Court in Belfast, and on April 29, 2010 the court was told that he had not reported to police since March 25, 2010. An application to revoke his bail was made, and he was understood to have left Northern Ireland.
In May 2014 images broadcast in Spain showed him in Venezuela. On July 3, 2015 the Spanish Council of Ministers formally asked Venezuela to hand him over to be tried for the alleged public justification of terrorist actions, a request based on the events of August 2, 2008. On July 25, 2016 Venezuela's Supreme Tribunal of Justice said it did not know where he was and asked the public prosecutor to locate him. In January 2026, after the political change in Venezuela, he was still believed to be there. Venezuela has denied every extradition requested by Spain since 2010, citing a presumed lack of impartiality in Spanish trials that it regards as political.
On June 1, 2026 Judge Francisco de Jorge of the Audiencia Nacional sent a letter rogatory to Venezuelan authorities asking for all the information they held on 14 former ETA members believed to be in the country, De Juana Chaos among them, citing the recent political change in Venezuela. The judge wants to establish their role in the organization and their degree of responsibility, including involvement in the offense of membership of a terrorist organization. The request followed an application by an association acting as a popular accusation.
The charge arising from the 2008 letter has not been tried, and the Belfast court's findings were that the alleged offense was extraditable, not that it had been committed.
1985 to January 1987: eleven attacks in Madrid in which 25 people die.
April 1986: five Guardia Civil agents are killed in Madrid.
June 1986: three members of the armed forces are killed in Madrid.
July 14, 1986: twelve Guardia Civil agents are killed in Madrid.
January 16, 1987: De Juana Chaos is arrested in Madrid.
October 7, 1987: judgment on membership of the organization, cited in later rulings.
1989: trial at the Audiencia Nacional; sentences of about 3,000 years in total.
October 2004: his release falls due; the Audiencia Nacional blocks the final calculation of his reductions.
December 2004: two articles published in a Basque newspaper form the basis of the threats case.
January 2005: he is charged and held in custody; a February release is halted.
August 7, 2006: he begins a hunger strike.
November 8, 2006: the Audiencia Nacional convicts him of terrorist threats and sentences him to 12 years and 7 months.
February 2007: the Supreme Court reduces the sentence to three years.
March 1, 2007: second-degree classification with electronic monitoring is ordered.
June 6, 2007: he is ordered back to a prison in the Madrid region.
August 2, 2008: he is released after 21 years; a letter in his name is read at an event in San Sebastián.
November 11, 2008: European arrest warrant for public justification of terrorist actions.
November 17, 2008: arrested in Belfast.
March 10, 2009: Belfast county court holds the alleged offense extraditable.
March 2010: extradition ordered; by April 29, 2010 he has left Northern Ireland.
May 2014: located in Venezuela.
July 3, 2015: Spain formally requests his extradition from Venezuela.
July 25, 2016: Venezuela's Supreme Tribunal of Justice asks the prosecutor to locate him.
June 1, 2026: the Audiencia Nacional asks Venezuela for information on him and 13 others.