MADRID (AFP) The suspected military chief of ETA may have been planning a kidnapping when he was arrested along with two others at the weekend, Spain's interior minister said Monday.
"One of the theories is that he was planning a kidnapping," Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told Spain's radio Cadena Ser.
As opposed to a square dance ...
Ibon Gogeascoechea Arronategui, 54, the "most senior" member of the Basque separatist group, was arrested in the northern French town of Cahan early Sunday, Spanish authorities said.
The two ETA suspects detained along with him were "saying goodbye" to Gogeascoechea before leaving for Spain, Rubalcaba said. He said the handcuffs they were carrying led the police to suspect they were about to stage a kidnapping.
Spanish newspaper ABC said Gogeascoechea was meeting the two others "to finalise the details of a kidnapping".
But it said the identity of the person targeted was unclear, although police suspect it may have been a Basque businessman or a politician or even a judge.
One of the two others arrested, Beinat Aguinalde Ugartemendia, 26, is suspected of the assassinations of a former socialist councillor and a Basque businessman in 2008, the Spanish interior ministry said Sunday.
Rubalcaba had warned in December that ETA may be planning a "spectacular" attack or kidnapping during Madrid's EU presidency, which began on January 1, to prove it is still strong despite a series of setbacks.
The latest arrests came amid stepped-up, cross-border cooperation by French and Spanish police against ETA, blamed for 828 deaths in its 41-year campaign for independence in the Basque region of northern Spain and southwestern France. ETA figures on several terrorist blacklists, including those of the European Union and the United States.
Several members of the separatist outfit, mainly members of its armed wing, have been arrested in France in recent years. In November 2008, police in France arrested the then military chief of the organisation, Garikoitz Aspiazu, and captured his successors Aitzol Iriondo and Jurdan Martitegui over the following months. In October, they also detained the suspected political leader of ETA, Aitor Elizaran. 
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