Court Watch
of the M23 leaders were associated with previous massacres, such as the Kiwanja massacre of 67 civilians and the Shalio massacre of 139 civilians.
The ill-trained FARDC owes much of its success over M23 to the international community. Rwan- da, M23’s major supplier of weapons, was forced to scale back overt and covert support of M23 due to pressure from the United States, which ended military aid to the country. Also, the United Na- tions provided 19,000 troops to the DRC. Unlike past UN peacekeeping forces, which had overly restrictive rules of engagement, this contingency was a success because it was allowed to neutral- ize armed groups.
The success of this mission could change the fu- ture of UN peacekeeping missions, from the old “don’t fire until fired upon” rules of engagement being dropped for a more realistic and offense-ori- ented set of rules that will allow the peacekeeping force to actually bring peace.
10 * Submitted by Blake Evans ECtHR Orders Release of Basque Terrorist
On October 21, 2013, the European Court of Hu- man Rights (ECtHR) ordered the immediate re- lease of Basque terrorist Inés del Río Prada. Under the Spanish law on the remission of imprisonment sentences, del Río Prada had been eligible for ear- ly release since July of 2008. In 2006, however, the Spanish Supreme Court adopted the Parot Doctrine, which altered the remission process and essentially barred certain prisoners, like convicted terrorists with large prison sentences, from early release. The ECtHR found that the application of the Parot Doctrine violated provisions within the European Convention of Human Rights (the Con- vention). While the decision was limited to del Río Prada’s case, the court’s ruling could create seri- ous ramifications for currently imprisoned Basque terrorists.
Inés del Río Prada is one of over 500 former mem-
bers of the Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) who were or are still imprisoned by the Spanish government. The ETA is a terrorist group whose violent campaign for an independent Basque state began in 1968. Since then, ETA at- tacks have killed over 800 people across France and Spain. After four decades of violence, ETA of- ficially announced a cease-fire in 2011.
Del Río Prada was arrested in 1988 while trans- porting explosives intended for an attack on the popular tourist destination of Costa del Sol, Spain. She was sentenced to over 3,000 years in prison for various terrorism-related crimes.
Spanish law caps a prisoner’s sentence term at 30 years, regardless of the original sentence man- dated. Therefore, because del Rio Prada was con- victed in a Spanish court her maximum “term to be served” was 30 years, despite the fact that her original sentence was much greater. Del Rio Prada was also entitled to a sentence remission of nearly nine years, meaning that she would only serve 21 years.
Sentence reductions and maximum prison terms are both well-established practices in Spain, but there is little legislative guidance on their applica- tion together. Traditionally, term reductions were taken from the 30-year maximum sentence. In 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court officially ruled against the established practice and implemented the Parot Doctrine which created a stricter stance on prison sentence remissions. Prisoners could still receive sentence reductions under the Parot Doctrine, but the reductions are taken from the prisoner’s court ordered sentence, not from the 30-year cap.
Despite the ECtHR’s decision, the Parot Doctrine has not been overruled. Rather, the ECtHR dele- gitimized the retroactive application of the Parot Doctrine to prisoners like del Río Prada. Spanish officials maintained that the ECtHR’s ruling will not apply beyond this case. However, Spanish interior minister Jorge Fernández Díaz said last year that
ILSA Quarterly » volume 22 » issue 3 » February 2014
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