Cuba acted as courier between Spain and ETA: report (Roundup)

Jul 9, 2007, 12:39 GMT

Madrid - The Cuban government acted as a courier between the Spanish government and the armed Basque separatist group ETA during the recent attempt to launch a peace process, the daily El Mundo reported Monday.

Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, however, denied the report.

Messages from Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government to ETA were transmitted to a Spanish intermediary, who passed them on to the Cuban government, according to the daily.

Cuba put the messages into writing and handed them over to Joseba Alvarez, one of the leaders of ETA's political wing Batasuna, who travelled frequently to the Caribbean island.

El Mundo said Cuba had participated in the incipient peace process at the same time as Zapatero's government maintained other contacts with ETA.

The government scrapped the six-month peace process after ETA broke its ceasefire with a car bombing that killed two people at Madrid airport on December 30.

El Mundo, however, claimed that the government stayed secretly in touch with ETA through the Cuban 'mail box' for months after the official end of the peace process.

The daily linked Cuba's alleged role with what it described as Zapatero's permissive policy towards Fidel Castro's regime.

Rubalcaba denied the report, saying Spain had made it clear to foreign governments that it would not talk to ETA as long as the group resorted to violence.

The daily El Pais meanwhile reported that France was investigating the alleged role of a detained ETA suspect in the peace process.

Jon Iurrebaso, who was arrested in France on March 29, told police that his presence in the country was linked to his role as a peace negotiator in Spain.

Iurrebaso presented the phone number of a senior French official and two Spanish phone numbers whose origin was being investigated.

ETA has most of its infrastructure in southern France, parts of which it wants to integrate into a future Basque state also covering parts of northern Spain.

Spain has braced for an attack by ETA after the group officially ended its ceasefire on June 6.

Rubalcaba warned Monday that ETA was preparing to soon stage a deadly attack, after making three aborted attempts in the past weeks.

Eleven ETA suspects have been detained in France, Mexico and Canada since the end of the ceasefire. French and Spanish police have seized hundreds of kilos of explosives.

The arrest of two ETA suspects near Paris last week enabled police to confiscate large amounts of computer materials, depriving ETA of its capacity to falsify documents, police said.

ETA has killed more than 800 people in its armed campaign of nearly four decades for a sovereign Basque state.