The Basque terrorist movement, ETA, suffered a serious blow to its financial structure yesterday. Police staged a series of - throughout the Basque Country and arrested nine people, writes Jane Walker.
But their most important seizure was tons of files and papers which may provide invaluable information on ETA's financial operations, both in Spain and abroad. A police spokesman said three lorries were needed to transport the confiscated documents, which are now being studied and could lead to further arrests.
The security forces, who have been working on the operation for over 18 months, say they believe they have dismantled the ETA sector responsible for raising money through kidnapping or extortion, in the form of "revolutionary taxes". These are imposed on Basque businessmen, to fund their terrorist activities and to provide funds for their terrorists living abroad, particularly in Latin America.
Mr Jaime Mayor Oreja, the Spanish Interior Minister, said the destruction of ETA's financial structure and its money laundering operations has been a top priority of his ministry for a long time. "This operation could yield valuable information and could well be just the tip of the iceberg of ETA's operations," he said yesterday.
One of the premises where police found important information was Gadusmar, a fisheries import-export company in Bermeo, near Bilbao, which has close ties with Cuba.
Gadusmar's Cuban representative has been named as Mr Carlos Ibarguren, alias Nervios, known to have been responsible for much of ETA's financial operations. He has been arrested in France, charged with terrorist activities.
Mr Juan Cotino, Director-General of Police, compared yesterday's arrests with the discovery in Sokoa, south-west France a decade ago of valuable information on ETA operations. "If Sokoa told us where ETA obtained their weapons, we believe today's seizures will tell us who paid for them."
At the same time it was announced that an ETA terrorist, Valentin Lasarte (34), had been sentenced to 82 years imprisonment for the 1996 murder of the Basque lawyer, Mr Fernando Mugica, brother of the former Socialist Minister of Justice, Mr Enrique Mugica. Lasarte is already in jail, serving a sentence for an earlier assassination.