Basque militant held in Belfast, faces extradition

BELFAST (Reuters) - Authorities in Northern Ireland on Monday arrested a Basque separatist militant whose hunger strike during a previous jail sentence threatened Spanish peace talks with ETA rebels.

A Spanish judge issued an international arrest warrant for Inaki de Juana Chaos last week after he was released from prison in August and failed to appear in court to testify in a case in which he was accused of praising terrorism.

"Following a request from the Spanish authorities, police have arrested a 53-year-old man this morning in Belfast," Northern Ireland police said.

"The man will ... appear before court later today for the commencement of extradition proceedings to Spain," a spokesman said.

A lawyer representing the Spanish government said earlier on Monday that De Juana Chaos would be arrested "by agreement between his solicitor and the police," but added that the case could not proceed until an interpreter was found.

A hunger strike by De Juana Chaos put pressure on peace talks between the Spanish government and ETA in 2006, in the months before an ETA car bombing ended the negotiations.

The former leader of ETA's "Madrid commando" spent 21 years in prison for crimes including 25 killings, among them the assassination of a rear admiral and the killing of 12 police officers with a car bomb.

He was summonsed again after a letter from him was read out at a Basque separatist meeting in San Sebastian.

Earlier on Monday, French police arrested ETA's suspected military leader, Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, known by the alias "Txeroki" or "Cherokee" -- the latest in a series of captures of senior ETA figures.

ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades of armed struggle for the independence of ancient Basque territories in Spain and France. Polls indicate it is supported by only a relatively small minority of Basques.

(Reporting by Anne Cadwallader, writing by Andras Gergely)