French charge suspected Basque terrorist leader (AP)

PARIS – A French judge has filed preliminary anti-terrorist charges against the suspected leader of the Basque separatist group ETA, a judicial official said Thursday.

Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu, known as Txeroki, was charged in two different cases, including over alleged links to the killing of two Spanish officers in southwest France last year.

Spanish officials say 35-year-old Aspiazu was the head of ETA, which has carried out attacks for years in a quest for a separate Basque homeland. Hundreds of people have been killed, mostly in northwest Spain.

Aspiazu was arrested Monday in southwest France. Investigating judge Laurence le Vert filed preliminary charges against him of "directing a group with terrorist aims," and possessing and transporting material for explosives, among other counts, the judicial official said.

The official was not authorized to be publicly named because the investigation is under way. Preliminary charges in France give investigators more time to probe and determine whether to send the case to trial.

Aspiazu was ordered to stay behind bars for the rest of the investigation.

Investigators believe he played a role in the shooting last year of two Spanish civil guards patrolling jointly with French colleagues in the French Atlantic resort town of Capbreton. Txeroki is charged in that case with "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise" but not with murder, the official said.

Spanish and French officials work closely in pursuing ETA suspects.

Spanish officials initially said Aspiazu was in charge of ETA's commando units, which carry out attacks. But Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said later that Aspiazu was actually ETA's top leader, in charge of overall strategy.

He did not say how or when authorities had discovered that he held that role. Perez Rubalcaba said the arrest is a coup but not a definitive one because ETA leaders have fallen before, only for the group to just designate another.

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