Suspected Eta leader arrested in France

French police arrested the suspected leader and the second in command of the Basque separatist group Eta yesterday. Spanish authorities said the arrests were an important blow but not a death knell for the armed organisation.

It was the sixth arrest of an Eta leader in two years. Four others were arrested in the Bayonne area of south-west France. One is a suspect in the shooting of a French policeman in Paris in March.

The Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba identified the alleged Eta leader as Mikel Kabikoitz Carrera Sarobe and said he was the instigator of major Eta bombings last summer in Spain.