Spanish Judge To Probe Links Between ETA, Colombian Rebels
Monday December 1st, 2008 / 16h32
MADRID (AFP)--A top Spanish judge has agreed to a request by public prosecutors to probe alleged cooperation between the armed Basque separatist group ETA and Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels, a judicial source said Monday. Judge Eloy Velasco of the National Audience, Spain's top antiterrorism court, made the decision based on information obtained from the computer of Raul Reyes, FARC's second in command who was killed in Ecuador in a Colombian military in March, the source told AFP. Last month Spanish public prosecutors said ETA and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia had collaborated with each other. They based their claim on media reports and information found on Reyes' computer. At least four ETA activists went to Colombia in 2003 to provide FARC rebels with instructions on the use of explosives, public prosecutors said. In the Reyes computer material, FARC had asked ETA to carry out attacks on its behalf in Europe, in particular against Noemi Sanin, the Colombian ambassador to France between 2002 and 2008, as well as Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos and Bogota's ex-mayor Antanas Mockus. Spanish prosecutors requested the arrest of five alleged ETA members - Martin Capa, Inaki Dominguez, Jose Ignacio Echarte, Jose Angel Urtiaga and Arturo Cubillas - who are suspected of exchanging information on military tactics with FARC rebels. Judge Velasco will decide whether or not to seek to question the five after he has studied the information he has requested from Spanish police on the alleged ETA-FARC links, the judicial source said. ETA, which is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union and the U.S., is blamed for the deaths of 824 people in its 40-year campaign for an independent Basque homeland. The FARC, also listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. and E.U., has been trying to overthrow the Colombian government for more than 40 years. It is currently holding between 350 and 750 hostages. Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http://www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=cyyj%2Fj9l%2Faz7taM%2FBIG0ZQ%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
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