A rapper has been jailed for writing songs that prosecutors said glorified terrorism and insulted the Spanish crown.

Josep Miquel Arenas, 24, from Mallorca, penned lyrics that called for political assassinations in the style of Basque separatist group ETA and said one regional politician 'deserved an atom bomb'.

The singer, known as Valtonyc, appealed against an earlier conviction on the grounds of freedom of expression and artistic freedoms.

Josep Miguel Arenas wrote lyrics endorsing violent militias and political assassinations

He protested the controversial words were 'extreme, provocative, allegorical and symbolic'.

But his three-and-a-half year prison sentence was upheld at the Supreme Court in Madrid on Tuesday.

The tribunal declared Valtonyc's songs contained messages that praised 'not only the political objectives of but the violent means employed by' ETA and clandestine Leninist group GRAPO.

Judges said reading the texts was enough 'to grasp the severity of the crime'.

The rapper, known as Valtonyc, claimed the songs should be allowed under freedom of expression laws

One song contained the line 'We want the deaths of these pigs', while another threatened the armed occupation of a royal palace in the Mallorcan capital of Palma.

Street protests in Valtonyc's native Mallorca had called for his acquittal, but a second appeal is thought unlikely.