A Basque journalist was shot dead outside his home yesterday in the town of Andaoin, near San Sebastian, as he walked home from buying the Sunday newspapers. Although no one has claimed responsibility for the killing, few doubt it was the work of ETA, who have stepped up their campaign of violence against members of the press since the beginning of the year.
Mr Jose Luis Lopez de la Calle (63), worked for the national newspaper El Mundo and was a columnist for the Basque edition of the newspaper. He was a founder member of the Ermua Forum, a pacifist group formed three years ago after the kidnap and murder of a young Ermua town councillor, Mr Miguel Angel Blanco. A former member of the Spanish Communist Party, Mr Lopez was detained and jailed on several occasions for his part in the struggle for democracy during Franco's dictatorship.
This was the fourth attack against journalists openly critical of ETA in the past two months. Mr Lopez was first targeted at the end of February when gangs of youths threw a petrol bomb at his apartment. It landed on the balcony beneath his, breaking windows and started a small fire. He had received other threats but refused a bodyguard.
Two other journalists, one a respected radio journalist and the other a columnist on the Madrid daily La Razon, received parcel bombs which were intercepted before they could be detonated. Both bombs contained a quantity of the dynamite stolen last summer from a mining installation in Brittany, which was also used in the three bombs which have killed four people since ETA called off its ceasefire at the end of last year.
The murder has been condemned by politicians of all parties - with the exception of those allied to ETA - and demonstrations were called across the Basque Country. The Prime Minister, Mr Jose Maria Aznar, cancelled a private visit to Marrakesh and sent telegrams of condolence to the dead man's family.
Mr Carlos Iturgaiz, the leader of the Basque wing of the governing Popular Party, described the latest killing as "ideological cleansing of all who do not agree with them (ETA)". And the Basque MEP, Mrs Rosa Diez, who is a candidate for secretary general of the Spanish Socialist Party, accused ETA of "trying to suffocate freedom and destroy democracy".