French police detain high-level ETA suspect

Apr 16, 2010, 10:46 GMT

Madrid - French police Friday arrested a suspected high- level member of the political structure of the militant Basque separatist group ETA, Spanish police sources said.

David Pla Martin was held at his home in Hendaye in the French Basque region.

The man, who has served a six-year prison sentence for belonging to an armed group, was believed to have headed a group including three ETA defence lawyers who allegedly acted as intermediaries between ETA and its imprisoned members.

The three were among a total of 10 people who were detained in Spain on Wednesday.

The lawyers helped ETA in a number of ways, acting as intermediaries with entrepreneurs from whom the group extorted 'revolutionary taxes' and recruiting new ETA members, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.

They were also believed to have gathered information on potential targets of attacks including Rubalcaba himself.

More than 40 ETA suspects have been detained so far this year. The group has killed more than 820 people in its four-decade campaign for a sovereign Basque state created out of northern Spain and southern France.