MADRID — French police arrested the leader of Basque separatist group ETA today and his second in command, Spanish officials said, calling it an important blow but not a death knell for the violent organization.
It was the sixth arrest of an ETA leader in two years. Four other people were arrested in the Bayonne area in southwest France. One is a suspect in ETA’s last killing — the shooting of French police officer in a botched car robbery outside Paris in March, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told reporters.
He identified the alleged ETA leader as Mikel Kabikoitz Carrera Sarobe and said he was the instigator of major ETA bombings last summer in Spain, one of which killed two policemen on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca.
“He is the maximum leader of ETA right now. He was responsible for its military branch, and thus directed the commando units,” Perez Rubalcaba said. Carrera Sarobe was ETA’s most wanted suspect for Spanish police.
Another detainee, Arkaitz Agirregabiria, has been identified by witnesses as a suspect in the shooting outside Paris and was the French police’s most wanted suspect, the minister said.
Agirregabiria was the ETA leader’s No. 2 and would have replaced him had Agirregabiria not been arrested himself, he added.
ETA is seeking an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France. It is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union and the U.S. It has killed more than 825 people since the late 1960s.
It declared a cease-fire in 2006 but reverted to violence in a matter of months after peace talks with Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s government went nowhere.
Perez Rubalcaba declined to cry victory over ETA, which is resilient and appoints a new leader when one gets arrested, although he called today’s operation huge.
“From an operational standpoint, clearly this is a tremendously important blow. The boss has gone down, and so has the one who was going to replace him,” he said.
Carrera Sarobe took over the ETA leadership in November 2008 when the group’s then leader Garikoitz Aspiazu was captured in France, the ministry said. “He is the mastermind of all the terrorist acts committed by ETA since then,” a ministry statement said of Carrera Sarobe.
The suspects were not in hiding but rather “working,” Perez Rubalcaba said. He refused to say if they were plotting an attack, but he added, “They were not saying a rosary, I can tell you that.”
The ministry and French police said the detainees were arrested in Bayonne or nearby Urrugne. The raid was staged by French police and Spanish Civil Guards.
One of the detainees is the girlfriend of a Frenchman who had been under surveillance and whose movements led to today’s arrests.
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