| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| Spain's Interior Minister wants Venezuela to cooperate with investigation |
| 2010-03-06 |
| Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the Spanish Minister of the Interior, has demanded the Venezuelan government on Friday to cooperate with the Spanish Judiciary in an investigation into alleged links between the Basque separatist group ETA and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), a guerrilla organization, because "terrorism is a serious issue." Demand away. How are you going to make them cooperate? You may not have noticed since you're a European and all, but Hugo doesn't really respond to 'soft power' ... "We must request the Venezuelan government to cooperate with the Judiciary. They have to collaborate with the Spanish Judiciary system," Rubalcaba said in statements released on Friday by the state-run TV network Televisión Española (TVE), as reported by Efe. The Minister of the Interior was referring to evidence of cooperation between President Hugo Chavez's government with the Basque terrorist group ETA and the Colombian guerrilla, according to an indictment released by Judge Eloy Velasco of the Spanish National Court. Pérez Rubalcaba recalled that "there has been some cooperation" between both terrorist groups, which has been already proved. However, the Spanish minister said that he was not sure that "the word 'permissive' was adequate to describe Venezuela's involvement in the case." Pérez Rubalcaba said that, in the past, the Venezuelan government refused to extradite several ETA members, at the request of Spain. He added that the Spanish government had to intervene to prevent some terrorist members from obtaining Venezuelan citizenship. |
| Posted by:Steve White |