MADRID, Aug 2: One of ETA's most notorious members left a Spanish jail on Saturday after serving 21 years for offences including the killing of 25 people, prompting victims' groups to hold countrywide protests.

Inaki de Juana of the Basque separatist group had been originally sentenced to 3,000 years for a wave of bombings and shootings in Madrid in the mid-1980s.

He walked free from a jail near Madrid in the early morning accompanied by his wife and lawyers amid tight security.

Spain's government has voiced its concern and said it expected de Juana to abide by the law.

“This individual draws a perfectly understandable sensation of contempt from the Prime Minister, as from all citizens,” Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said.

Zapatero's government broke off attempted peace talks with ETA after blaming it for the December 2006 bombing of Madrid airport, in which two people died.

De Juana was first due to be freed in 2005 as the maximum prison sentence then applicable in Spain was 20 years. This has since been extended to 40 years for terrorist offences.

He was given a further sentence for threatening behaviour and glorifying terrorism.

One victims' group gathered 200 people at the site of a 1986 car bombing in a Madrid, organised by de Juana, which killed 12 policemen and wounded another 70 people. Opposition Popular Party secretary-general Dolores Cospedal told the meeting she thought de Juana's sentence had been too short.

“If the laws we have allow us to feel as indignant as we do, then they will have to be changed, as laws have to respond to citizens' sensibilities,” she said.—Reuters