Spain’s longest serving common prisoner turned 61 last Saturday and, on Monday, went ahead with his threat to start a hunger strike if he had not been released from prison by his birthday.

Miguel Montes Neiro first entered prison in October 1976 at the age of 26 for deserting from the Army and the only time he has been free since then was during one of his several escapes over the years.

The last of his 20 sentences, none of which Europa Press reports are for ‘blood crimes’ was this January when he was sentenced to another six months in prison for using a prison pass to attend his mother’s wake to escape from custody.

His application to combine his sentences was rejected by a court in Granada and is currently on appeal at the Supreme Court. As things stand now, he is not due for release until 2021, while his lawyer argues that he should have been released in 1994.

Europa Press reports that Miguel Montes Neiro’s lawyer has now asked the government for a pardon for humanitarian reasons, given his client’s precarious state of health. He is understood to have both hepatitis C and tuberculosis and there are concerns that the hunger strike he has now started at the prison in Huelva could prove fatal.