A Spaniard has been sent to prison for one year over his Facebook comments that “killing fascists” was his favourite sport.
Javier Omaña, 34,was sentenced by Spain’s National Court for inciting terrorism for his series of messages.
One message read that "killing fascists and txakurra (police officers or dogs in Basque) isn’t a crime… it’s my favourite sport".
In another of his posts he praised the Basque separatist group ETA for assassinating Admiral Luis Carerro Blanco in 1973, a prime minister while the dictator General Franco was still in power.
He posted several messages supporting ETA and photos of armed ETA members and their manual of arms and explosives.
Omaña said he often accessed his social media account in cyber cafes with “people with whom he drank a few beers”. He said they had been the ones who had posted the comments in praise of ETA, but refused to give their names despite pressure from the prosecution.
In his judgment, Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that the publications are "sufficiently expressive of a particular desire to praise and justify the actions of specific terrorist organisations," which constitutes a crime of praising terrorism.
The court also considered it the case that he was the owner of his Facebook account, despite it being open to the public, as he had his domain (username and password) and never lost the power to manage it.
Social media comments have brought bother to other people. Under Spain’s controversial “gag” law, one man was fined €600 for his Facebook post that police officers were “slackers”.
