Suspected ETA chief arrested in France

French police have arrested the suspected leader of Basque separatist rebels ETA, believed to be behind attacks including the bombing of Madrid airport in 2006, the Spanish and French governments said yesterday.

Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, known by his alias "Txeroki" or "Cherokee" and Spain's most wanted man, was arrested along with female ETA suspect Leire Lopez at 3.30 a.m. (0230 GMT) in a flat in Cauterets, in France's mountainous Pyrenean region near the Spanish border.

It was the latest in a series of captures of senior ETA figures and appeared to be the biggest blow to the organisation since May, when ETA's top commander Francisco Javier Lopez Pena was arrested in the French city of Bordeaux.

"Today ETA is weaker and Spanish democracy is stronger. ETA has not lost its capacity to attack, it hasn't lost its capacity to hurt, but it has been dealt a hard blow," Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told a news conference in Madrid.

Mr Aspiazu, 35, will face charges in France for direct involvement in the killing of two Spanish civil guard police in the French seaside town of Capbreton in December 2007, said Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Rubalcaba, who added that he had been captured by agents from the same unit as the dead men.

"What better homage to fallen comrades than to catch the man who killed them," Mr Rubalcaba told a news conference, adding that Mr Aspiazu had been traced after police identified false licence plates on his stolen Peugeot car.

Spanish authorities believe Mr Aspiazu ordered the car bombing at Madrid airport in December 2006 which killed two people and wrecked peace talks with the Spanish government.

"He was in charge of all of ETA's units and ordered all their attacks," Mr Rubalcaba said. While Mr Aspiazu faces a possible French prison sentence, Madrid will also ask that he be sent for trial in Spain on 22 charges before returning him to serve out jail time in France, Mr Rubalcaba said.