Arrest of ETA suspect sparks questions about alleged Venezuela link

Mar 12, 2010, 7:28 GMT

Madrid - Portuguese airport police have detained a suspected member of the militant Basque separatist group ETA who was trying to take a flight to Venezuela, Spanish and Portuguese media Friday quoted Spanish police sources as saying.

The arrest came less than two weeks after a Spanish judge sparked diplomatic tension by accusing the Venezuelan government of cooperating with an alliance between ETA and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Andoni Cengotitabengoa, 30, was identified at a routine airport check in Lisbon as he attempted to embark on a flight to Caracas with a fake Mexican passport, according to the sources.

Judge Eloy Velasco earlier claimed that ETA and FARC trained with each other, planned killings of Colombians in Spain and that some ETA members had held government posts in Venezuela.

Spain requested 'information' from Caracas while Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dismissed Velasco's allegations as being part of a US-led campaign to discredit his country.

Cengotitabengoa's detention also pointed to ETA members having stayed on in Portugal after trying to establish infrastructure there.

ETA is believed to be seeking new hideouts in Portugal and northern France after coming under increasing police pressure in Spain and in southern France.

Cengotitabengoa is one of the two ETA suspects who were identified as the occupants of an ETA base in Obidos north of Lisbon which was discovered by police in February.

The two eluded the police raid, which uncovered 1,500 kilograms of explosives.

Cengotitabengoa has been sentenced in absentia to 13 years in prison for street violence.

Spanish police meanwhile said they and their French counterparts had discovered the body of ETA suspect Jon Anza, 47, whose disappearance in May 2009 prompted ETA to accuse police of having tortured and killed him.

Police sources, however, said Anza had suffered a heart attack in a Toulouse park and died at hospital. Because he carried no identity documents, his body was left at the local morgue until now, when it was finally identified.

The definitive identification, however, was not expected until Saturday.

About 30 ETA suspects have been detained in Spain, France and Portugal so far this year.

ETA, which has killed more than 820 people since 1968, is listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States.