The world at a glance . . . Europe

Madrid

Terrorist freed: Spain’s most notorious terrorist was released from jail this week, prompting angry demonstrations across the country. Iñaki de Juana Chaos was sentenced to 3,000 years in prison for killing 25 people in the 1980s, while he was a member of the Basque separatist group ETA. But Spanish parole laws mandated that he be freed after just 21 years. De Juana has never expressed remorse; in a letter written after one killing, he said of the victims: “Their tears are our smiles, and in the end we will roar with laughter.” At a welcome-home ceremony in San Sebstián this week, de Juana called a late leader of ETA a “great man.” A Spanish judge is already looking into whether de Juana can be charged with a new crime, “praising terrorism,” for that statement.

Milan

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Soldiers as police: Italy sent hundreds of soldiers into its major cities this week to fight a crime wave the government has blamed on illegal immigrants. The unusual military deployments in Milan, Turin, Naples, and Rome are part of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s law-and-order campaign. In Milan, the troops are posted at the Duomo and other tourist sites. But in Rome, Mayor Gianni Alemanno said he did not want soldiers in historic areas because they would scare tourists away. And the mayor of Taormina refused the offer of soldiers altogether, noting that the Sicilian resort town’s last murder occurred in the 1960s. Italy’s center-left opposition criticized the deployments, saying the government is trying to portray immigrant crime as much worse than it is.