THE SUSPECTED leader of the military wing of the Basque separatist movement Eta was arrested in northern France early yesterday morning. Ibon Gogeascotxea (54) is the fifth top leader to fall into police hands in two years.
He and two other terrorist suspects were detained in a joint French-Spanish police operation near the village of Cahan in Normandy where they were driving a car with false licence plates. The police put a cottage under surveillance when Gogeascotxea rented it using forged papers.
The fall of the Eta leader and two of his most dangerous accomplices – believed to be Beinat Aguiagalde (26) and Gregorio Jimenez (55) – is seen as a successful finale to what Spanish interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba described as “the worst two months in Eta’s history” with 32 arrests and the seizure of almost 2,000kg of explosives in January and February.
Mr Rubalcaba told journalists yesterday morning Gogeascotxea had summoned his accomplices to finalise plans to carry out an important terrorist operation across the border in Spain. Ibon and his brother Eneko Gogeascotxea were accused of an abortive assassination attack on King Juan Carlos during the inauguration of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in October 1997. Police discovered the plot and in a shoot-out killed Eneko, but his brother Ibon escaped.
The second detainee, Aguiagalde, a qualified doctor, has been described by police as belonging to the most hardline wing of Eta and of being “especially dangerous, violent and aggressive”. He has been accused of murdering the socialist regional politician Isaias Carrasco in March 2008 and the Basque businessman Ignacio Uria nine months later. He is also believed to have been responsible for planting a large car bomb at Navarra University, in whose medical faculty he had qualified.
The third detainee has so far not been positively identified although he is believed to be Gregorio Jimenez (55). Jimenez is accused of taking part in a foiled rocket attack on the former prime minister José Maria Aznar in 2001. During the 1980s, he lived in Latin America and spent 10 years in a Nicaraguan jail.
Three weeks ago, Portuguese police discovered a large cache of weapons and explosives near Coimbra in northwest Portugal. Anti-terrorist police believe Eta was planning to move part of their operations into Portugal as pressure from French police was making their lives untenable.
The recent arrests were described by Mr Rubalcaba as “very significant”. He said they have dealt a severe blow against Eta, but he warned the organisation was still extremely dangerous.