France said Tuesday it had arrested six alleged members of ETA, as authorities continue to hunt down those who belong to the Basque separatist group over a year after it ended all armed activity.
The arrests come after a suspected top commander of ETA — considered a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States — got a life sentence in April for the 2007 murder of two Spanish police officers in France.
According to an interior ministry statement, the six were arrested in different parts of France on Tuesday morning.
“Despite positive developments on this issue in the Spanish Basque country, our national territory is still a base for the logistical and military withdrawal of clandestine structures of the organisation,” the ministry said.
The six were arrested in Blois, a city in central France, and Brive-la-Gaillarde and Montpellier, in the southwest of the country.
A source close to the case in Montpellier told AFP that investigators located two of the alleged members several days ago and put them under surveillance, before arresting them early Tuesday morning.
They will be transferred to Paris before the end of the week.
Spain’s Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz is expected to brief the press later Tuesday about the arrests.
ETA is blamed for 829 deaths in a four-decade campaign of bombings and shootings for independence for the Basque Country of northern Spain and southwestern France.
The organisation announced in October 2011 that it was giving up its armed struggle.
But it has yet to formally disarm and the Spanish government has refused to hold talks with its leaders.
Six ETA members arrested in France
