ETA suspect linked with attempt to kill former Spanish premier arrested

ETA suspect linked with attempt to kill former Spanish premier arrested

2011-03-09 01:34:43 GMT+7 (ICT)

BIDACHE, FRANCE (BNO NEWS) -- A suspected member of the armed Basque separatist group ETA who was involved in the failed attempt to assassinate then-Spanish premier José María Aznar in 2001 was arrested on Tuesday in southwestern France, El País reported.

French agents, accompanied by Spanish civil guards, arrested Gregorio Jiménez Morales alias Pistolas while he was hiding at a house of a former ETA member, whose son had been arrested hours earlier, in Bidache.

Jiménez, who has already served several prison sentences for terrorism-related crimes, is allegedly the leader of the group that transported from France to Spain a missile launcher that ETA was planning to use to fire Russian-made SAM-7 missiles on a plane carrying Aznar. There were three failed attempts between April and May 2001 in the Basque region, where Aznar was attending electoral rallies.

Jiménez, 56, became part of a legal command of ETA called Andatza in 1981, which was disbanded the following year. He was forced to flee to France and then to South America, where he mixed with revolutionary groups. Shortly after he was arrested in Costa Rica for attempting to attack Edén Pastora Gómez, a former member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, who was in exile in the country. On May 9, 1986, after a huge scandal in Spain for ETA activities in South America, he was sent to Spain and returned to prison. On June 30, 1987, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for three counts of terrorism. In May 1997, he was released.

In 2001, he re-integrated into ETA before being arrested by French police in Bayonne on June 29, 2009 for his connection with several violent acts committed against tourist and real estate interests in the French department of Pyrenees-Atlantiques. He was released a few days later.

Jiménez was one of ETA's most experienced member.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-03-09