Spain hails capture of 'most brutal Eta leaders'

A police swoop on two Eta military chiefs has dealt a heavy blow to the Basque separatist organisation by decapitating its armed structure in France, Spain's Interior Minister said yesterday.

The minister, Angel Acebes, hailed the detention of Juan Antonio Olarra Guridi, 35, and Ainhoa Mugika Goñi, 32, on Monday night as "magnificent news ... as they are the ones who gave the orders, supplied the material and, most importantly, selected the targets".

Mr Acebes also said the two, a couple, were the "most brutal and most wanted terrorist leaders" that security forces had pursued since 1994. Spain's justice ministry urged France to hand them over swiftly for trial in Spain.

Police said the separatists, originally from San Sebastian, who went on the run to France in 1996, had taken charge of Eta's military apparatus after the organisation's former commander Francisco Javier Garcia Gaztelu, or "Txapote", was captured in February last year. Mr Olarra Guridi was said to have been Txapote's right-hand man. Several Eta militants detained recently said Mr Olarra Guridi had given them orders from France.

The couple were detained in a supermarket car park in Talence, near Bordeaux in south-west France, after a three-month police surveillance operation. Their car bore false plates and they carried automatic pistols. Police searched their flat and took away documents.

Mr Olarra Guridi is on an EU list of wanted terrorists accused of nine killings, including that of the president of Spain's Constitutional Court, Francisco Tomas y Valiente, in one of the most high-profile Eta killings of recent years. The judge, who taught law at a university in Madrid, was shot three times in the head in his study in 1996.

Ms Mugika Goñi, Mr Olarra Guridi's companion in a Madrid commando, is wanted over a car-bomb attack on the Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar, in 1995. Mr Aznar, the conservative opposition leader at the time, escaped unhurt.

Also detained was Saroia Gallaraga, 21, the French-born daughter of an Eta militant who fled to France in 1972. Ms Gallaraga, a member of the radical Basque youth group Segi, is accused of renting safehouses to Eta militants operating from France. The woman's companion, Bruno Josie, a Frewnch national, was also detained. All four were taken to Bordeaux police station for questioning, where they declined to speak.

Up to a hundred Eta suspects have been seized in the past year, 70 in Spain, 22 in France and others in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Venezuela and Uruguay. The latest operation, "the fruit of closer and more intense collaboration between French and Spanish security forces", made Eta "weaker than ever", Mr Acebes said. None the less, despite an offensive against Eta's political wing, Batasuna, the violence has not declined. Attacks this summer killed a six-year-old girl and spread fear in Spanish coastal resorts.

Batasuna is suspended by order of Judge Baltasar Garzon and awaits a banning order from MPs. But the crackdown has not deflated Eta's support. Pro-Batasuna demonstrations present themselves as protests in defence of free speech, as Amnesty International pointed out last week. Police used tear gas and water cannon against protesters in Bilbao on Saturday.

The Basque government launched a counter-offensive yesterday against Judge Garzon in the Supreme Court, condemning his ban as "unjust", "excessive" and "criminalising the majority of Basques".

Police sources confirm that there is no shortage of Basque militants eager to join the fray. Some speak of a "waiting list" of would-be Eta killers.