Madrid (CNN) -- A former chief of the Basque terrorist group ETA has been sentenced to 105 years in prison for ordering the assassination of a politician, according to a copy of the court ruling, made public Monday. It is the first sentence in a case involving ETA from the National Court, which handles terrorism cases, since ETA announced last month "a definitive cessation of its armed activity," raising hopes that decades of separatist violence may finally be over. The maximum that can be served in Spanish prison is 40 years, although courts often hand down a longer sentence for terrorist attacks. Spain has no death penalty. In the sentence issued last Friday but made public on Monday, the court ruled that Francisco Javier Garcia Gaztelu, whom Spanish authorities called the military chief of ETA when he was captured in 2001, ordered the assassination of a Basque Socialist politician, Fernando Buesa. Buesa and his bodyguard were killed in the Basque city of Vitoria in nor...
Striving for a World without Capital Punishment