After 17 years of flight, ETA's historic leader, Josu Ternera, is arrested in France

The arrest of one of the historic leaders of the Basque separatist armed organization, which has been dissolved for a year, was recorded "early in the morning today in the city of Sallanches , in the French Alps ", he announced. Spanish Ministry of the Interior in a press release.

Calf, 68, is described in the ministerial statement as "the most wanted ETA terrorist organization activist by the Spanish and French police services"

During 40 years of violence for the independence of the Basque Country and Navarre, ETA killed more than 800 people before leaving the armed struggle in 2011. In May 2018, he announced his dissolution , Ternera being responsible for recording the call "final declaration"who ended this group born of resistance against the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

Apparently seriously ill, Josu Ternera had fled the Spanish justice system since 2002, which linked him to a 1987 bombing in a Civil Guard barracks in Zaragoza, killing 11 people, including several children. With great influence within the group, ETA, currently held, led from 1977 to 1992.

According to the experts of the French counterterrorism, it privileged then the strategy of the terrorism aiming at forcing the Spanish government to negotiate the negotiations on Basque separatism. For example, he is credited with the adoption of car bomb attacks by the group.

Meanwhile, he was elected MP for Herri Batasunaradical Basque nationalist party considered by many as the political arm of ETA. He was also involved in the failure of peace negotiations in 1989 with members of the Spanish government in Algeria.

In 2002, he escaped justice after being summoned to the Supreme Court to testify about the 1987 attack. In hiding, he participated in negotiations with the Spanish Socialist Government during A truce in 2006, but was later dismissed from the organization's hard will take control. The process failed. In December 2006, ETA blew up a bomb at the Madrid airport, killing two Ecuadorian citizens, and in June 2007 ended the ceasefire.

Security forces retaliated with a series of beatings against the organization, which barely had operational capability. announce the end of the violence in 2011. All the while, the Spanish head of the interior was the socialist Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, died last Friday and pulled between the tributes of all the Spanish political clbad.

The dissolution of ETA has not resulted in the police's efforts against the organization, with more than 350 crimes still unresolved. The Spanish Ministry of the Interior emphasizes that "many tracks have been borrowed" to locate veal in the French Alps. The detainee "resided near the town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, in a neighborhood very popular for the practice of winter sports," he said in his statement. "The city is close to the borders between France, Switzerland and Italy," added the ministry.

This arrest is the result of a joint operation of the Civil Guard and the French General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), whose collaboration has been essential in the fight against ETA in recent years . Spanish media claim that Ternera would currently suffer from a type of Cancer.