Spanish, French police swoop on 33 ETA suspects

Posted October 08, 2003 20:28:00

Police in Spain and France arrested 33 people early today in a swoop aimed at the Basque armed separatist group ETA.

Police sources say 28 were detained in Spain's northern Basque and Navarre regions on suspicion of belonging to ETA and recruiting for the organisation, which is listed as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.

French police sources say four men and one woman connected to the banned radical Basque youth group Segi were arrested in Bayonne in the south of the country.

ETA has killed more than 840 people since 1968 in a campaign for an independent Basque state in northern Spain and south-west France.

"The operation is ongoing," a Spanish anti-terrorist security source said.

"(It) was coordinated between judge Baltasar Garzon and French anti-terrorist judge Laurence Le Vert."

Justice Garzon has spearheaded Spain's ETA clampdown.

The Spanish arrests, made after police searched almost 40 buildings, were the result of closer operations between French and Spanish police.

The last fatal ETA attack was in May when a bomb killed two police officers and seriously injured a third.

Topics: law-crime-and-justice, france, spain