THE MAN believed to be the military chief of the Basque separatist organisation Eta has been arrested in Cauterets, near Lourdes, in southwest France.
Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, alias Txeroki, and a woman named as Leire Lopez Zurutuza were detained shortly after 3.30am yesterday in the French ski resort, some 60km from the Spanish border.
They were both armed when French police, in a joint operation with Spanish security forces, raided a house on the Rue Richelieu, where they had reportedly been staying for about three days.
A search of the building uncovered a large quantity of explosives, arms and ammunition. Files and computers were also seized, which are now being studied by French and Spanish intelligence officers.
When confirming the arrests yesterday French interior minister Michèle Alliot-Marie said Garikoitz was believed to have fired the gun that in December last year killed two Spanish police in the French town of Capbreton. They were believed to have been on an undercover surveillance mission when three Eta gunmen spotted them in a supermarket car park. Two of the gunmen were detained shortly after the attack, but the third - later identified as Garikoitz - has been on the run since. Further proof of his participation in the attack came earlier this month when two other Eta suspects told police that Garikoitz had confessed to them he had been responsible for the shooting. This attack broke Eta's unwritten rule never to act in France, where many activists have lived after escaping Spanish security forces.
Garikoitz is also accused of issuing the order and supplying a high-powered rifle to shoot King Juan Carlos on his yacht in Mallorca in an abortive attack and of ordering the murder of a Spanish judge in 2001. He is also believed to have been pivotal in Eta's decision to resume violence. An 18-month ceasefire was broken in December 2006 with the detonation of a powerful bomb in the car park of Madrid airport's Terminal 4. Two men sleeping in their cars died in the attack.
Mikel Garikoitz (35) began his career in Eta when he took part in many acts of kale borroka (street fighting) in the streets of Bilbao. He has been on the run, probably in France, since May 2002, when an order for his arrest was issued.
He assumed Eta's leadership in 2004 after the arrest of previous leaders Mikel Antxa and Soledad Iparraguirre. Spanish and French security forces have been collaborating closely in their crackdown against Eta and it is likely that French courts will order Garikoitz's deportation to Spain to face trial.
The Spanish interior ministry described yesterday's arrest as "one of the most significant for many years". This is not the first time political leaders have claimed to have "decapitated" Eta which has always recovered, frequently carrying out new attacks to prove it was far from beaten.
Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero welcomed the news, saying the arrest would save lives. "Eta is weaker and Spanish democracy is stronger. The person who ordered many of Eta's operations and is directly responsible for many deaths has now fallen," he said.