Madrid - The alleged military head of the militant Basque separatist group ETA has been arrested in southern France by French and Spanish police, Spanish media reported Monday. Mikel Garkoitz Asiazu Rubina, known by his alias Txeroki, was arrested with a woman at Cauterets ski resort near Lourdes in the Pyrenees in an coordinated operation between French and Spanish security forces, newspaper El Mundo reported. Both were armed.
Txeroki has been the military head of ETA for five years and is directly responsible for the organization and giving commands to terror cells, reported the newspaper.
The Spanish Minister of Interior Alfredo Pérez Rublacaba confirmed that Txeroki was suspected of the murder of two Spanish policemen in the southern French city of Capbreton in December 2007.
Last week French police detained two suspected members of ETA during a routine police check as they were cycling near Tarascon-sur-Ariege in the south of France.
ETA, which has killed more than 800 people in its campaign for a sovereign Basque state carved out of northern Spain and southern France, has long had a part of its infrastructure based in France.
ETA has been listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States.
