Basque suspect with FARC link arrested in France
A man suspected of belonging to Basque separatist group ETA and training Colombian FARC guerrillas was detained in France, officials said Friday.
Inaki Dominguez Atxalandabaso was captured Thursday in Modane in the French Alps aboard a train traveling from Milan to Paris, Spain's Interior Ministry said in a statement. The suspect had false Spanish identity documents and large quantities of computer and electronic components.
The 36-year-old Atxalandabaso is believed to have lived in Venezuela for years and security forces are investigating why he was in France.
"One has to analyze exactly what he was carrying and check the information we hold, but it's evident he was up to no good with the material he was transporting," Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.
Dominguez Atxalandabaso is cited in a March 2010 judicial investigation by Spanish National Court judge Eloy Velasco as having given explosives training to 13 FARC members in the Venezuelan jungle three years earlier.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has always denied any link to Dominguez Atxalandabaso and ETA generally, but Velasco said the suspect traveled in the South American country escorted by a person who wore a clearly identifiable jacket bearing the logo of Chavez's Venezuelan Military Intelligence Directorate. Velasco said Dominguez Atxalandabaso had at other times also received military protection while in Venezuela.
The judge said the ETA-FARC training sessions had been organized by Arturo Cubillas, believed to be the Basque separatist group's coordinator in Venezuela. Spain has asked Chavez's government for Cubillas to be extradited for trial.
Evidence of Dominguez Atxalandabaso's activities came to light in ETA documents and in e-mails found in a computer that was seized when FARC guerrilla leader Raul Reyes was killed in a Colombian army operation in March 2008.
ETA has killed 829 people since 1968 in a campaign of bombings, shootings, kidnappings and extortion to finance its operations. It is listed as a terrorist group by Spain, the European Union and the U.S.
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