Madrid - A former Socialist Interior Minister, Jose Barrionuevo, and ex-national security chief, Rafael Vera, yesterday began serving 10-year sentences for their involvement in Spain's "dirty war" against Basque separatists.
The former prime minister, Mr Felipe Gonzalez, who numbered the two among his closest aides in the 1980s, joined several thousand chanting supporters and most of the Socialist leadership in a show of solidarity outside Guadalajara Prison as the two turned themselves over to authorities.