An alleged ETA member sought by the Spanish courts as part of an investigation into relations between the Basque armed organization and the FARC guerrilla group was detained in France, the Spanish Interior Ministry announced on 17 June.
An alleged ETA member sought by the Spanish courts as part of an investigation into relations between the Basque armed organization and the FARC guerrilla group was detained in France, the Spanish Interior Ministry announced on 17 June.
Iñaki Domínguez Atxalandabaso, thirty-six years old, “an alleged salaried member of the terrorist gang” ETA, was detained in southeastern France, on a train travelling on the Milan-Paris route, with a suitcase containing electronic material, according to the ministry.
He was the subject of several European arrest warrants issued by the National High Court, Spain’s chief court, for “collaboration with an armed or terrorist gang,” the ministry added.
Domínguez is one of six alleged ETA members against whom charges were brought in the National High Court in March 2010, along with seven FARC members, for supposed collaboration between the armed Basque independence organization and the Colombian guerrilla group.
This supposed collaboration consisted in the provision of training courses to the FARC by ETA and for the purpose of staging attacks in Spain against prominent Colombians, including former president Alvaro Uribe.
According to the Spanish courts, relations between the two groups could rely on Venezuelan “government cooperation,” something that Caracas has always denied.
ETA, responsible for 829 deaths in more than forty years of violence to demand the independence of Euskalherria (the Basque Country, neighboring Navarre, and the French Basque Country), has been observing a ceasefire since 10 January.