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| Europe |
| ETA military leader arrested in France: police |
| 2009-04-19 |
| [Iran Press TV Latest] Security forces in France have arrested Jurdan Martitegi, the suspected top military leader of the armed Basque separatist organization ETA. Martitegi was detained along with two other ETA suspects in the vicinity of the southwestern French city of Perpignan in an operation carried out in cooperation with Spanish security forces, Spanish national radio reported on Saturday. Spanish news reports said Martitegi confessed his identity to the arresting officers, who also seized three guns and a car with false number plates. Hours later, Spanish security forces detained a further three people in the Basque Country province of Alava in a related operation. The Basque news agency Vasco Press said Martitegi, 28, had been a member of ETA's most active unit, the Viscaya cell, which was dismantled by the Spanish police last July with the arrest of several members. He was believed to have replaced Aitzol Iriondo -- who was arrested in southwestern France on December 8 -- as the leader of ETA's military operations. Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States as it is blamed for the deaths of 825 people in its 40-year campaign of bombings and shootings to carve a Basque homeland out of parts of northern Spain and southwestern France. |
| Posted by:Fred |