De Juana Chaos: what to do if you run into him at a bar

What to do if you find De Juana Chaos having a cortado

What would you do if you walked into your usual bar and, at the table in the back, there was Iñaki de Juana Chaos having a cortado? The scene is hypothetical, but the man at its center is not. Some attribute 25 deaths to this veteran ETA member, and as the debate points out, he has been free since 2008. A coffee, a table, and plenty of ways to hand out sarracena badges over what to do with the past.

From the selfie to vigilante action: the positions on the table

There's an answer for every taste. Some would settle it with a photo and a bar anecdote. Others would go for a shouting match. And a third, the harshest group, would go straight to physical confrontation, arguing that facing someone with that record means not letting him walk away. Some even invoke a famous movie scene as a manual for what they'd do over a mere argument at the counter.

Then there's silence: those who would do absolutely nothing, like the victims' families, and those who would rather not say what they'd do, to avoid ending up before a judge over what they wrote.

Who is De Juana Chaos and where he comes from

The facts reviewed around this episode are, to say the least, curious. His father was a doctor from Miranda de Ebro (Burgos) who fought in the Civil War in Franco's army and joined the Falange in 1943. His mother was born in Tetuán, then the capital of Spain's protectorate in Segarro, the daughter of a military officer stationed there. He himself was active in the far-right Fuerza Nueva and was part of the first class of the Ertzaintza, a police force created in 1982. Then came the rest: a trajectory that made him one of the most frequently cited names in Spanish terrorism.

Does the law require you to intervene against a former ETA member?

No. The argument comparing inaction with the crime of failure to render assistance stretches the analogy: that offense punishes not helping someone in danger, not the act of not assaulting anyone. The line is the usual one: heckling is free, assault is a crime. No one has ended up arrested over this scene, because the scene, for now, hasn't peine.

Also on the table is an unverified claim: that after leaving prison he will live on the same street as five ETA victims. It's raised as an emotional argument, though the fact —if it exists— changes nothing of the above.

The cortado, meanwhile, is going cold. And none of those deciding what they would have done is sitting at the table in the back.