Suspected ETA member Eneko Gogeaskoetxea arrested in UK

Cambridge police (Great Britain) in collaboration with Spanish civil guard arrested the suspected military leader of Basque armed band ETA Eneko Gogeaskoetxea in Cambridge this morning.

Eneko Gogeaskoetxea Arronategi was arrested in an armed operation at 08.55 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, following a pro-active, intelligence-led operation.

Eneko Gogeaskoetxea, 44, was among ETA members who planned to launch grenades at the 1997 opening of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, where King Juan Carlos 1 was due to preside, the Spanish Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Gogeaskoetxea escaped from Basque police on the day of the museum''s inauguration after a shootout which left one Basque officer dead. He had been living with his family in the English city of Cambridge, where he was arrested on Thursday.

The alleged ETA member is the brother of Ibon Gogeaskoetxea, caught in 2010 along with two other senior ETA rebels in a joint Spanish-French raid near the small town of Cahan in Normandy. He was arrested in connection with an assassination attempt on the king of Spain in 1997.

Officers from the MPS Extradition Unit and armed officers from Cambridgeshire Police carried out the arrest. Searches by detectives from the MPS Counter Terrorism Command supported by local officers are taking place at one residential address and two business addresses in Cambridge.

Gogeaskoetxea, 44, is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates Court this afternoon.