Basque terrorists' leader seized in French police raid

FRENCH police have arrested the suspected leader of ETA, the Basque separatist terror group, striking a blow against its bombing campaign, Spanish officials said yesterday.

Francisco Javier Lopez Pena, who had been on the run for more than 20 years and was also known as Thierry, was arrested with three other suspected ETA leaders in the south-western French city of Bordeaux.

Lopez Pena and the other three – Jon Salaberria, Igor Suberbiola and Ainhoa Ozaeta – did not resist arrest, French police said. Television showed them shouting separatist slogans as they were bundled into police cars.

A French police official said four handguns, false papers, computers and material that could be used to make explosives – including sodium chlorate and time-bomb equipment – were seized in the Bordeaux flat.

Spain's interior minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, called the arrests a major blow to ETA, which security forces believe has been weakened by police action and declining support.

"This isn't just another operation. Francisco Javier Lopez Pena, in all probability, is the person with the greatest political and military weight in the ETA terrorist group," he said.

"This is a very important operation, because it involves very important leaders, so it should have a big effect. But I insist that ETA could still cause a lot of harm."

The prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, thanked the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, for Paris's help with the arrests. "We have taken another step towards the victory of democracy over terrorism," he told reporters.

In related moves, French police arrested a 76-year-old Frenchman over the renting of a property to the ETA suspects. In Spain's Basque Country, police detained the former mayor of the town of Andoain.

Spain was preparing requests for the immediate extradition of two of the suspects arrested in Bordeaux, but the case of Thierry is complex, as he is also wanted on criminal charges in France.

Spanish police have suspected since 2007 that Lopez Pena, 49, was in charge of ETA military operations, Spanish media reported. Mr Rubalcaba said police were investigating his possible role in the Madrid airport bombing in 2006, which killed two people and ended peace talks with the government.

Ozaeta, the only woman arrested, had read a ceasefire declaration by ETA on video in 2006 that led to the talks, a Spanish government spokesman said.

ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades in its fight for independence for the Basque Country in north-east Spain and south-west France.

Its last fatal attack came on 14 May, authorities believe, when a car bomb wrecked a police barracks in Spain, killing one officer.

More than 750 ETA suspects have been arrested since 2000 and officials believe ETA's strength has plummeted since 1992, when an earlier group of rebel leaders were arrested.

"As ETA is a lot weaker than it was, the new arrests, although very important, have less effect," said Ignacio Sanchez Cuenca, author of a book on the group.

Polls show most Basques do not want independence. But the leader of Spain's Basque regional government, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, is defying Madrid with plans for an illegal referendum on whether to begin a debate on ties with Spain.

TIMELINE

1959 – ETA is formed to fight for Basque self-determination.

1968 – ETA carries out first killing: victim is Meliton Manzanas, police chief in San Sebastian.

1973 – Spain's prime minister, Luis Carrero Blanco, is killed when car passes over explosives planted by ETA in Madrid.

1980 – In its bloodiest year, ETA kills nearly 100 people, despite Spain's return to democracy.

September 1985 – First ETA car bomb explodes in Madrid. A US tourist is killed and 16 Civil Guards wounded.

July 1986 – Twelve Civil Guards are killed in Madrid and 50 wounded.

June 1987 – Twenty-one shoppers are killed by a bomb at a Barcelona supermarket. ETA apologises.

September 1998 – ETA announces a truce.

21 November, 2000 – Socialist Former health minister Ernest Lluch shot dead in Barcelona. Nearly one million demonstrate to condemn ETA.