San Sebastian, Spain - Suspected Basque separatists
Wednesday shot dead an entrepreneur in Azpeitia near San Sebastian in
Spain's Basque region, police said.
Ignacio Uria Mendizabal, 71, was one of the heads of a company
participating in the construction of a high-speed rail network which
had come under threat from the militant Basque separatist group ETA.
Two people shot Uria Mendizabal in the head and chest as he was
about to leave his car in the car park of a restaurant where he came
daily to play cards.
Health workers failed to revive the victim who died of his
injuries.
The attackers fled by car. It was thought possible that they used
a vehicle robbed a few hours earlier from its driver who was found at
25 kilometres from Azpeitia with his hands tied. The car was later
burned and abandoned, according to radio reports.
ETA had carried out several minor attacks against companies
participating in the construction of the rail network, which is to
link the Basque cities of Bilbao, San Sebastian and Vitoria with each
other, Madrid and France by 2013.
ETA sees the rail project as representing the interests of the
Basque region's governing Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which it
regards as too moderate in promoting the Basque nationalist cause.
Uria Mendizabal was the fourth person allegedly killed this year
by ETA, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the European
Union and the United States.
ETA has killed a total of more than 820 people in its four-decade
campaign for a sovereign Basque state.
The killing of Uria Mendizabal came two weeks after the capture of
Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu alias Txeroki, ETA's suspected military
leader, in France. Spanish police had expected ETA to retaliate for
the arrest.
Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega expressed
the government's 'total and absolute rejection' of the killing, while
the governing Socialist Party vowed that 'terrorist madness will not
succeed' in influencing 'democrats.'
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero suspended meetings
which he had been due to attend Thursday in the Basque region.
Socialist sources said he might now visit the region to show his
disapproval of the killing of Uria Mendizabal.
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