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Spain arrests 9 ETA-linked suspects

14 September 2010 22:43 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Spanish police have arrested nine people suspected of having links to the Basque separatist group ETA days after the armed group declared a unilateral ceasefire, APA reports quoting Press TV.

In a predawn raid by Civil Guards forces, five men and four women were detained in the Basque country and Navarra Province in northern Spain.

Police sources said those arrested are accused of heading Ekin, the body that "prepares and sends out the directives of ETA."

Ekin was ruled as "part of the heart" of ETA by Spain’s National Court in 2007.

ETA, itself, has been blacklisted as a terrorist group by the European Union and the US.

The arrests come eight days after ETA declared a ceasefire, vowing to stop its decades-long campaign of violence for an independent homeland in Spain.

Only hours after the declaration, however, the Spanish government dismissed the announcement as "insufficient" and demanded ETA to renounce violence "completely forever."

Spanish political parties and victims of ETA assaults have also urged the group to surrender its arms and disband. Most Spaniards have also expressed skepticism about the ceasefire.

ETA has been blamed for 828 deaths in the Basque region of northern Spain and southwestern France.