Spanish police arrest alleged ETA member wanted for killing of 5 police officers

Spanish police arrest alleged ETA member

MADRID — A suspected member of the armed Basque group ETA was deported from Mexico on Thursday and arrested in Spain, where he is wanted for allegedly killing five Spanish police officers and a pregnant wife of one of the officers.

A police statement said Juan Manuel Inciarte Gallardo, 55, was taken into custody at Madrid airport when he arrived on a flight from Mexico City, where he had been living illegally. Inciarte allegedly took part in the slaying of the five police officers and the pregnant wife of one officer between 1983 and 1985. He is wanted on terrorism charges.

ETA has killed more than 825 people since 1968 when it started a violent campaign for an independent Basque state.

The group has been blamed for two bombings in Spain last week that killed two officers and wounded 60 people. Those attacks came in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the founding of the group on July 31, 1959.

Police said Inciarte played a direct role in the shooting to death of two police officers and the wife of one in a parking lot in the Basque city of Bilbao in 1983. Inciarte is suspected of having killed a Civil Guard officer in July 1984 and of having taken part in bomb attacks on two police stations a month later. In May 1985, he killed a police inspector as the officer walked along a street with his three-year-old child, police said. A month later, he allegedly shot dead a Civil Guard.

Spanish authorities believe Inciarte moved to Nicaragua using a false identity in 1986 but had been living in Mexico City since 1996.

The statement said Mexican authorities were tipped off that he was living there illegally. Once it was established he was the man wanted in Spain, Mexico expelled him and informed Spanish police of his pending arrival.

(This version CORRECTS RECASTS; UPDATES with detail, background; corrects period of killings to 1983-1985, sted 1983-2005)