Spain and Portugal to cooperate against ETA 01/10/2007 00:00

1 October 2007

MADRID - Spain and Portugal on Monday agreed to establish a joint team of police experts to investigate the eventual presence of the armed Basque separatist group ETA in Portugal.

The investigation was already under way, but it would now be intensified, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said after the interior and justice ministers of both countries signed an agreement to create joint anti-terrorism teams in Lisbon.

The ministers were attending a European Union meeting.

ETA has traditionally had a large part of its infrastructure in southern France. It has used cars acquired in Portugal recently, raising the possibility that it may have extended its activities to Portugal.

In August, ETA members fled in a car with Portuguese registration plates after staging a bombing which injured two police officers in the Basque region.

Two months earlier, ETA abandoned a car loaded with explosives, which had been rented in Portugal, near the Portuguese border.

Portuguese police have, however, expressed doubts over the hypothesis that ETA would have a permanent infrastructure in Portugal. dpa st ds
 
[Copyright DPA with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news