Spain's highest court today upheld a ban on the radical Basque separatist party Batasuna, accused by the government of forming part of the armed independence group ETA.
A spokeswoman for the Constitutional Court said it rejected Batasuna's appeal of a Supreme Court ruling last March making Batasuna illegal under a law that targeted the party for refusing to condemn ETA violence.
With its last appeal in Spain exhausted, Batasuna becomes the first party banned in the country since it returned to democracy following the death of dictator General Francisco Franco in 1975.
The party has said the ban violates its constitutional and human rights. Batasuna lawyer Inigo Iruin said it would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Batasuna, which won 10 per cent of the vote in the Basque country in 2001, denies being part of ETA although it refuses to condemn the Basque independence group's violence.
ETA has killed nearly 850 people since 1968 to press its demands for an independent Basque state. ETA, which stands for Basque Homeland and Freedom, is considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.
Prime Minister Mr Jose Maria Aznar, who survived an ETA bombing while he was still opposition leader, engineered a controversial 2002 law that banned political parties for refusing to condemn acts of terrorism.
Following an ETA attack in a coastal town in August 2002, which killed a six-year-old girl and a 57-year-old man, parliament voted to ban Batasuna and its previous incarnations.
The ban prevented Batasuna from running candidates in municipal elections last year, allowing other parties to take hundreds of posts in town governments previously held by Batasuna in Basque areas of northern Spain.