The Spanish government has claimed that two suspected members of the armed Basque separatist group ETA, arrested in a shootout on Tuesday in which a Spanish policeman died, were planning a deadly New Year's Eve bombing spree in Madrid.
Interior Minister Angel Acebes said the ETA suspects were transporting 130 kg (286 pounds) of explosives when two Civil Guard police officials stopped their stolen car at a checkpoint some 25 miles northwest of the capital. One officer was killed when shot at point blank range, and the other was wounded in the arm.
"With these 130 kilos of explosives, which they intended to plant on New Year's Eve, they planned a series of explosions in shopping centres," Acebes told a news conference. "These attacks would have created a lot of pain, suffering, terror and alarm."
He said a confession had been extracted from one of the suspects, Jose Maria Etxeberria, who was detained in the northern Basque city of San Sebastian after fleeing in a car hijacked at gunpoint. His companion was seriously wounded in the gun battle with police.
Listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States, ETA has killed 838 people since 1968 to press its demands for an independent state in Basque areas of northern Spain and southwest France. Acebes said the explosives in the car were divided into one package of 90 kg and several smaller parcels. A bomb squad blew up the car on Tuesday in the town of Collado Villalba.
He said the two ETA suspects had come to Madrid a day after planting a car bomb that ripped through a parking garage in the northern coastal city of Santander on December 3, causing extensive damage but no injuries.
The dead Civil Guard officer, Antonio Molina, 27, was buried amid a public outpouring of grief on Wednesday in his home town of Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the coast of north Africa. Acebes awarded the dead official the Order of Merit
