JURDAN MARTITEGI, the military chief of Eta, was arrested by French police near Perpignan on Saturday night amid reports he was planning future terrorist operations. Two other men, Alexander Uriarte and Gorka Azpitarte, were also detained.
At the same time, Spanish police arrested six other Eta suspects in simultaneous raids in the Basque cities of Vitoria, Bilbao and Renteria. Another Eta suspect, Itxaxo Legoburu, was also detained near Perpignan last Wednesday, although a second unidentified man managed to escape.
Martitegi (28) is the third military chief of Eta to have been detained in less than six months.
His predecessors, Aitzol Iriondo and Mikel Garikoitz, alias Txeroki, fell into police hands in November and December last year, seriously weakening the separatist movement.
Anti-terrorist officers had been following Alexander Uriarte (29) as he drove from Spain to meet Martitegi and Azpitarte and watched as they held a two-hour meeting in the local cemetery.
When surrounded by police, he immediately identified himself saying: “I am Jurdan Martitegi.” Although all three were armed, they surrendered without violence.
Spanish interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said that Martitegi was giving the orders for future operations to Uriarte, head of a new terrorist cell in Spain. He confirmed that this cell had now been neutralised.
“In the last few months, we have succeeded in disarticulating two separate commando cells before they had a chance to attack – and not after – as has happened in the past. This is proof of the efficiency of the anti-terrorist operations and the co-operation between Spanish and French security forces,” Mr Rubalcaba said yesterday.
Twenty-two Eta suspects – 11 in Spain and 11 in France – have been arrested so far this year.
Martitegi is notorious as one of the most dangerous terrorists. His photo has appeared on hundreds of wanted posters in Spain and in France. He began his career as a teenager before joining an Eta cell and going into hiding.
He is known to have taken part in several bombings, including a car bomb attack against a civil guard barracks in 2007, in which a young guard died. Heavily built, 190cm tall and known as “the giant”, he was not hard to identify on CCTV as he planted the bomb outside the barracks.
Spanish television yesterday broadcast a leaked document from nationalist groups in which they estimated Eta terrorist violence had cost them up to 55,000 votes in the recent regional elections.
For the first time in more than 20 years, the regional government will be not presided over by the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), but by a coalition of Basque Socialists and conservative Popular Party.