MADRID (Reuters) - ETA kingpin Josu Ternera, accused by Spain of taking part in a 1987 attack by the since dissolved Basque separatist group that killed 11 people, was arrested in France early on Thursday.Ternera, 69, also known as Jose Antonio Urrutikoetxea, was ETA’s "most wanted" leader on both side of the Pyrenees, Spain’s interior ministry said in a statement.
Ternera had been a fugitive since 2002 when, while he was serving as a lawmaker in the Basque regional parliament, Spain’s supreme court issued an international arrest warrant against him over his alleged involvement in the 1987 attack.
He was detained in a joint Franco-Spanish operation in the alpine Haute Savoie region near France’s border with Switzerland and Italy.
ETA, whose dissolution Ternera announced last year, bombed a police barracks in the city of Zaragoza in December 1987, killing 11 people including six children.