After six months, “we’ve also won the bureaucratic battle,” Chapartegi said from Switzerland. He will have a chance to live a normal life. His lawyer was informed of the decision yesterday and this afternoon he will receive a residence permit.

Txapartegi was arrested for the first time in 1999, allegedly because of his association with ETA and subjected to torture during the period of incommunicado detention. In fact, he was tried years later on the basis of his statement under torture in Case 18/98. He was sentenced to nine years in prison, but escaped before being arrested.

He has been living in Switzerland with false documentation but has responded to extradition requests from the Spanish state against him and was arrested by the Swiss Federal Justice in April 2016 in Zurich, in collaboration with the Spanish Police. He spent a year and a half in prison in Switzerland until the Spanish National Court reduced his sentence and declared his case a statute of limitations. He was released on 15 September last year.

In Switzerland, the State has been regulated for six months and a residence permit has been granted to a citizen born in Switzerland.