| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| Belgium to extradite ETA suspects to Spain |
| 2004-05-15 |
| Two Spanish men arrested in Belgium on suspicion of belonging to the Basque separatist organisation ETA are to be extradited to Spain. The two men, Jon Lopez Gomez and Diego Ugarte Lopez de Arkaute, were arrested at the end of March in the Belgian town of Bossu. The Belgian authorities initially refused to send the two men back for trial in Spain, despite an official extradition request from Madrid. But on Friday a Belgian court overturned the earlier decision on the case and said the two suspects should be extradited. The change of heart followed a frank exchange of views on the subject between Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and his Spanish counterpart Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Diplospeak for "nearly coming to blows", plus Spain prolly had an ace up its sleeve (maybe some sort of EU carrot/stick). When the two men met for talks last month, Zapatero insisted that the Belgian government "do everything in its power" to ensure that the country’s judicial authorities respect extradition requests from other EU countries. Hmmm...still don’t like/trust Zapatero, but he was able to strongarm Belgium into coughing up some terrorists. The US better not get caught misunderestimating him. |
| Posted by:Seafarious |