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ETA claims two latest bomb attacks in the Basque Country
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By m.p. - Jan 2, 2008 - 1:36 PM
The damage caused by the bomb in Balmaseda on Christmas Eve. Photo – EFE.
ETA has claimed responsibility for the two latest terrorist attacks in the Basque Country: in Sestao on 16th December, and in Balmaseda on Christmas Eve. There were no injuries in either of the explosions.
The Sestao device, which was set to go off 1am, blew off the heavy wooden doors of the court building, and left a large hole, some two metres deep, at the entrance. The explosion in Balmaseda, 30 kms from Bilbao, caused considerable damage to one of the two offices the PSE-EE Basque Socialist Party has in the town, and came at eight minutes past nine in the evening, during the King’s Christmas message to the nation. Both blasts were preceded by warning calls 50 minutes prior to each of the explosions. The caller did not specify in the Balmaseda case, however, which of the two PSE-EE offices had been targeted.
ETA accuses the government in a statement published in the online edition of the Basque newspaper, ‘Gara,’ on Wednesday of creating a situation which aims to ‘destroy the Basque independence movement,’ and which they say also ‘reveals an intention’ (by the government) ‘to get deeper into state terrorism.’ The statement claims that Basque citizens are tortured in Civil Guard barracks without any fear of reprisal, and refers to the Interior Minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, as the ‘GAL Minister.’
The Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación were the counter-terrorism death squads active during the 1980s, which are believed to have killed 27 people, most of them suspected members of ETA. The Socialist Interior Minister of the time, José Barrionuevo, and his Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Vera, were sentenced for the Caso Marey, a case which stemmed from the GAL investigations.
The statement adds that the government is giving a message that it wants to prolong the conflict with heavier sentences being handed down to ETA suspects, and the refusal to transfer ETA prisoners to prisons in the Basque Country.
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