THE PAROT DOCTRINE

cadizcasa — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 10:23:18 +0000

You may have read in the papers about Spain´s Parot Doctrine being over turned by the European Court of Human Rights, forcing them to release from prison some pretty heavy duty criminals before the end of their full jail terms.
The Parot Doctrine was a 2006 Spanish Supreme Court decision that sentence reductions for good behaviour where a prisoner could “earn” one day off their sentence for every two worked or spent studying should be taken off the total sentence and not the maximum sentence. This meant that for prisoners in Spain, where total sentences can run in to hundreds or even thousands of years, a prisoner would have little or no chance of earning time off their sentence by good behaviour. This was found to be a “cruel punishment” by the Strasbourg court.
The Parot Doctrine is named after Henri Unai Parot, an Eta member from the French side of the Basque country who was the first person affected by this new process.
Following the overturning of the Parot Doctrine by Strasbourg, a high profile prisoner named Ines del Rio Prada, 55, has been released and gone to ground. Spanish official sources say she is not registered anywhere in Spain, causing concern in many quarters. Ines was a member of the Madrid Commando, a particularly bloodthirsty cell of the Eta organisation. Arrested in Zaragoza in July 1988, she was caught driving a car packed with explosives intended for an Eta attack on the Costa del Sol.
She was sentenced to more than 3,828 years in jail, most of the sentence pertaining to her role in an attack on the Guardia Civil police in Madrid which left 14 dead and 40 injured but also other attacks in which she killed a total of 24 people. The sentence was converted to the maximum life sentence of 30 years meaning that she should have left jail in 2008 having “earned” 6 years of reduction in sentence by working in the prison but with the Parot Doctine applied she remained in prison after 2008.
Spain have been ordered to pay Ines 30,000 euros as compensation for the additional years she served past the natural end of her sentence.
That said, she is unlikely to see a penny of the payout as she was ordered to pay nine million euros to the next of kin of the victims and to those left disabled in the blast, as well as to the State for the clear-up operation and the cost of treating the injured.
Ines had given an address in Tafalla (Navarra) during her prison term and she has also been connected to two addresses in Pamplona, one where her sister lives, but she did not show at any of these addresses after her release. The last sighting of Ines was in the backseat of a vehicle being driven away from the prison by family members who had met her at the prison gates waving the Basque flag. Ines husband nicknamed “Willy” is also a central member of the Eta organisation.
Another Eta prisoner affected by the Parot Doctrine was released recently from Worcester prison in the UK. Antonio Troitino, sentenced for his part in the bombing of Hipercor in Barcelona in 1987, is the only case involving the UK courts. He was originally sentenced to 2,700 years for his part in the murder of 21 people but he was released 4 years early for good behaviour.
Some 7 days later Spain used the Parot Doctrine to circumvent the time limit and ordered Troitino to be rearrested. He fled and was eventually apprehended on an international warrant in the UK in June of last year.
The High Court in London ordered that he be released from Long Lartin prison recently on condition that he report daily to a police station. Spain´s high court now has to decide whether to push for his extradition but in light of the release of Ines del Rio Prada the question is whether they will take things further.
The overturning of the law not only affects terrorism cases but also other serious cases such as the brutal abduction, torture, rape and murder of 3 teenage girls in the Valencia province in 1992. Referred to as the “Alcasser murders” the brutality of the crime has affected the small town ever since and its population has dropped over the ensuing years, some say as a direct result of the stigma attached to the crimes. Miguel Ricart one of the accused had the Parot Doctrine applied to his sentence by Strasbourg and was released on Friday, raising fears about the safety of the public when such notorious killers come back on to the streets.
There are 47 member states in the Council of Europe and Spain is one of only five who do not have a life sentence, the others being Portugal, Norway, Croatia and Serbia who´s maximum sentences range from 21 to 40 years.

Cadizcasa Blog » Parot Doctrine

THE PAROT DOCTRINE