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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Spaniard held in Chile over explosives cache |
| 2010-01-02 |
| (CNN) -- A Spanish citizen has been arrested in Chile after officials said they found a large cache of explosives in his house, the Telam news outlet reported Friday. The explosives matched material used in four bombings in the region in 2009, said Telam, the government-run news agency in neighboring Argentina. Chilean media reported the arrest, but the official state-run CAN news agency did not. Authorities did not release the man's name after his arrest Thursday in the Araucania region of central Chile, Telam said. The suspect lived in the city of Padre Las Casas, which is 680 kilometers (422 miles) south of Santiago, Chile's capital. Chilean media identified him as a 38-year-old Spaniard who arrived in the region in March. He worked as a writer and translator, La Tercera newspaper said. Bio-Bio Radio identified him as a Basque poet and writer. Authorities said they found a high-power, unexploded bomb Thursday in front of the Auracania Ministry of Justice in the nearby city of Temuco. The bomb did not explode, officials said, because the fuse failed to detonate the explosives. Similar bombs were placed in the past 12 months in front of the Regional Public Defender's Office, a plaza and a pharmacy, Telam and Chilean media said. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 Living in or immigrating from the Basque land does not make you Basque, madam. Very true, sir. Although poets in obscure languages tend to be born to them. But nonetheless a good point. And welcome! I don't recall seeing your name/nym before. Pappy, the things you know! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-01-02 12:45 |
| #4 Given that there is a Basque independence movement that likes to plant bombs, and, as vendaval alluded, the propensity for radical groups to associate with each other on a global scale(IRA/IRA remmnants with FARC, for example), it's highly likely that the individual is an ethnic Basque. Also, there is a large Basque population in Chile; it's very unlikely that Chilean police would make such a semantic error. As for names, Wiipedia sez: "Basque surnames on the whole are easily identifiable, reasonably well documented and follow a small number of set patterns. The vast majority of all Basque surnames are not patronymic (like Johnson in English), or based on personal features (like Brown or Smith) but refer to the family's etxea, the historically all important family home." FWIW. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2010-01-02 12:07 |
| #3 Living in or immigrating from the Basque land does not make you Basque, madam. A question for your question - what names do British have? A few days ago a Briton was executed in China - his name was Akmal Shaikh... |
| Posted by: vendaval 2010-01-02 11:13 |
| #2 identified him as a Basque poet and writer What kind of names do Basques have, vendaval? One does wonder about the names of his friends, though. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-01-02 08:32 |
| #1 I wonder what is the first name of the alleged "Spaniard". I bet it is not Jose or Pablo.That's first. And second: there's a quite numerous "palestinian" community in that country - check if the guy didn't have any contacts with them... |
| Posted by: vendaval 2010-01-02 00:30 |