A Spanish judge on Monday accused the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of involvement with the Basque terrorist group ETA, sparking a major diplomatic row between the two countries.
The allegations, made in a court document by investigating magistrate Eloy Velasco, said that the Chavez government had acted as an intermediary between ETA and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group.
“There is evidence in this case which shows the Venezuelan government’s co-operation in the illegal association between FARC and ETA,” the magistrate said as he issued international arrest warrants for six alleged ETA members and seven Colombians.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero immediately called for an explanation from Venezuela.
“We are awaiting an explanation,” he said. “The government of Spain will decide what to do when it receives that explanation.”
There was no reply last night from Venezuela.
Velasco named Arturo Cubillas, an alleged ETA member who works in Venezuela’s ministry of agriculture, as the link man with the FARC. Cubillas is married to a senior member of Chavez’s personal office, El Pais newspaper reported yesterday.
Judge Velasco said two FARC members, Victor Vargas and Gustavo Navarro, had travelled to Spain twice in order to identify possible targets among the Colombian community for assassination.
They included former president Andres Pastrana, deputy president Francisco Santos and a former presidential candidate and mayor of Bogota, Antanos Mockus.
Velasco said the FARC members had relied on ETA for support during their visit and that attempts had also been made to find a way of killing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe during a visit to Spain.
The investigating magistrate said that up to half a dozen ETA members had travelled to Venezuela to train FARC members in the use of C4 explosives and cellphones as detonators.
The allegations came on the same day that Spanish police confirmed the identity of all three ETA members arrested on Sunday at a farmhouse in Normandy, France.
They included both ETA military chief Ibon Gogeaskoetxea and a veteran member of the group who has spent many years living in Venezuela, Jose Ayestaran.
Ayestaran is wanted by Spanish police in connection with 10 killings. Gogeaskoetxea is wanted for his alleged involvement in a plot to kill Spain’s King Juan Carlos at the opening ceremony of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in 1997. A police officer was killed when his ETA group was caught trying to plant a bomb in a flower sculpture by Jeff Koons at the museum’s entrance.
Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said yesterday that the ETA men had been planning a kidnapping in Spain.
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