A French judge has charged three suspected members of the Basque separatist group Eta, including the man believed to be its new military leader, and ordered them to be detained pending trial, an official said today.
The three men were charged with belonging to a criminal group with links to a terrorist organisation.
"The three Eta militants have been charged and put in custody in line with the prosecution's request," said Isabelle Montagne, spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor.
They include Aitziol Iriondo, who is thought to be Eta's new military leader. He was arrested along with Eneko Zarrabeitia and Aitor Artetxe by police on Monday near Bagneres-de-Bigorre in southwestern France. The town is outside the French Basque region.
The French Interior Ministry believes Iriondo had succeeded Txeroki, the alias for Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, as the head of Eta's military operations.
Rubina was jailed in November in Paris after being arrested in Cauterets, in the Pyrenees.
Spanish authorities say Eta has been reduced to a relatively small number of guerrillas after a series of arrests of senior figures. But it has continued to carry out regular bombings.
Eta began its violent campaign for the independence of traditional Basque territories in northern Spain and southwest France in the late years of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in the 1960s, and has killed more than 800 people in four decades.