Spain arrests Basque leader Otegi

June 8, 2007

Spanish police arrested the politician Arnaldo Otegi, a Basque leader of the outlawed party Batasuna on Friday, in the northern Basque city of San Sebastian, shortly after the Supreme Court, in Madrid, upheld a lower-court's conviction of him last year for "glorifying terrorism" at a memorial in December 2003 for a dead ETA leader.

His arrest comes three days after ETA announced the end of its 15-month unilateral cease-fire. During this cease-fire, Otegi was claimed as a key interlocutor in potential peace talks, but if the government and courts appeared to take a soft-glove approach toward Otegi during the cease-fire, the mood quickly shifted following ETA's announcement in a statement Tuesday that it was ready to resume attacks "on all fronts."