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Basque Militants Suspected in Death of French Police Officer

17 March 2010 19:15 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Suspected members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA killed a French police officer in a shootout near Paris on Tuesday night, French authorities said Wednesday, APA reports quoting â€œThe New York Timesâ€ newspaper.
If ETAâ€™s responsibility is confirmed, it would be the first time a member of French security forces has been killed by the group, which operates primarily in Spain but has long used southwestern France as a staging area. Under increasing pressure from French and Spanish law enforcement agencies, ETA has in recent months moved some of its operations deeper into France.
The Spanish prime minister, JosÃ© Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, attributed the shooting to the separatist group. â€œI condemn this criminal action carried out by the criminals of the terrorist group ETA and express my solidarity with France,â€ he said.
Mr. Zapatero called the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, on Wednesday afternoon to offer his condolences and discuss joint efforts against ETA, the presidentâ€™s office said.
On Tuesday night, a police patrol stopped four people who had been seen filling the gas tanks of four vehicles at the side of a road in Villiers-en-BiÃ¨, a village about 30 miles southeast of Paris. The cars, it was later recognized, were among six that had been stolen earlier in the evening from a nearby sales lot, news reports quoted the police as saying. As the officers handcuffed the suspects, two more stolen vehicles arrived at the scene.
Occupants of those vehicles began shooting on the police, who returned fire. One officer was killed; all but one of the suspects escaped. French police arrested the remaining suspect, reported by French and Spanish news outlets to be a 27-year-old male believed to have ties to ETA and reportedly known to Spanish authorities. They also recovered the apparent murder weapon, a .357 magnum, its serial number scratched out, Agence France-Presse reported.
French and Spanish police have detained 34 people believed to be ETA operatives this year, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry, and several of the groupâ€™s military and political leaders have been arrested in the past year. Significant stocks of weapons and explosives belonging to the group have also been seized in France.
Many experts believe ETA has been seriously weakened by the recent arrests. They say the group has also been split by a conflict between members advocating continued armed struggle and those who would like to move the organization into the political mainstream. A year ago, regional elections saw a pro-Spanish government come to power in the Basque region of Spain for the first time in 30 years.
Classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, ETA seeks an independent state in the Basque regions of northern Spain and southwestern France. The militant group is blamed for more than 825 deaths since its inception in 1959.