MADRID — French police have arrested the alleged chief of the Basque militant group ETA, the third capture in six months of a leader of the battered but still-dangerous separatist organization, Spanish officials said Sunday.
French and Spanish police unleashed a joint operation Saturday that resulted in nine arrests of ETA suspects, six in Spain’s northeastern Basque region and the rest just north of the French border, said Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba at a news conference.
French police firing shots in the air captured Jurdan Martitegi Lizaso, alleged chief of ETA’s “military” operations, and two other suspects in the village of Montauriol, in southwest France. Martitegi, a fugitive wanted in several terrorist attacks, allegedly took part in ETA’s most recent deadly strike: the car-bombing of a military facility that killed a Spanish army officer in the town of Santona last year.
Martitegi became the military chief after the arrest in December of his predecessor, who lasted only three weeks after replacing captured leader Mikel de Garikoitz Aspiazu, known as “Txeroki,” according to Spanish police.
The disarray results from aggressive police infiltration and strong cooperation with authorities in France, traditionally a refuge where ETA leaders plot attacks and acquire guns and explosives. Rubalcaba vowed that the authorities would not relent.
ETA has killed more than 825 people since the 1960s and benefits from pockets of support among fanatical nationalists in the wealthy Basque region.
