Francisco Javier Lopez Pena
Encyclopedia
Francisco Javier López Peña alias Thierry, (14 February 1958 – ) is an ETA
ETA
ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...

 member. He headed the political leadership of the group. On the 20th of May, 2008, López Peña was arrested in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

, France during a joint operation between French and Spanish police officials.

ETA activity

López Peña has been on the run from law enforcement since 1983. On March 18, 1991, following the arrest of Jesus Arcauz Arana ("Josu of Mondragon") in Biarritz
Biarritz
Biarritz is a city which lies on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in south-western France. It is a luxurious seaside town and is popular with tourists and surfers....

, France, the leader of the military apparatus of ETA, López Peña moved into the upper echelons of ETA's leadership.

In 2006, he is said to be the responsible for calling off the negotiations with the Spanish government
ETA's 2006 ceasefire declaration
The ETA's 2006 "permanent ceasefire" was the period spanning between 24 March and 30 December 2006 during which, following an ETA communiqué, the Spanish government, led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on one side, and the militant group on the other, engaged in talks as a means to agree on a...

 by ordering the Barajas Airport bombing
2006 Madrid Barajas International Airport bombing
The 2006 Madrid-Barajas Airport bombing occurred on December 30, 2006 when a van bomb exploded in the parking of the Terminal 4 of the Madrid-Barajas Airport in Spain, killing two and injuring 52. On January 9, 2007, the Basque nationalist and separatist organisation ETA claimed responsibility for...

 on December 30, 2006. In this regard, López Peña has been usually described as hawkish.

Furthermore, the recent spate of attacks in early 2008 and the killing of a Civil Guard
Civil Guard
The Civil Guard , often abbreviated in Hebrew to Mash'az is a volunteer organization of Israeli citizens which assists in daily police work. It is a subdivision of the Israel Police.-Organization:...

 member was supposed to have occurred at Lopen Peña's behest.

Prisoner

López Peña's first tryst with the law occurred on February 14, 1983 when he was arrested in Bayonne
Bayonne
Bayonne is a city and commune in south-western France at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, of which it is a sub-prefecture...

, France. He was charged with criminal conspiracy and sent to prison.

On July 8, 2005 he was sentenced, in absentia, by the Correctional Tribunal of Paris (France) to 8 years' imprisonment for criminal conspiracy.

On February 5, 2007 Central Examining Court No. 5 of the National High Court ordered his search, arrest and incarceration in prison for collaboration with terrorist or armed bands.

On his arrest on May 20, 2008 López Peña was in a Bordeaux apartment with three other ETA members, including Ainhoa Ozaeta Mendiondo, Igor Suberbiola and Jon Salaberria . They were reported to have not having resisted arrest.
When police raided the flat in Bouscat, which had been under surveillance for a week, they found two handguns, a homemade rocket-launcher and several detonators which were seized.
In all there were six arrests including Angel Arrauzpide-Cruz, considered by police to be the head of an ETA reservist cell, and a former mayor of a Basque city arrested earlier in the year, who is said to have led police to López Peña.

On Monday May 26, 2008, López Peña along with four others arrested in the same week were remanded to a court in Paris. The group are expected to be placed under judicial investigation for "criminal association with a terrorist organization."

Political impact

While it is still too early to tell what impact this arrest will have on ETA's operations and the Spanish government response, it is described as a major setback to the group.

On May 27, the Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the state is stronger and ETA is crippled. Consequently, he announced plans to recruit more police for the security services in dealing with ETA. However, he also warned that while the state is "stronger than ever", the capacity for ETA to "harm us a lot" still existed. In speaking before the Interior Committee at the Spanish Parliament he hailed the arrest of López Peña as a critical blow to the group.

On May 30, ETA released a statement exclaiming despite the arrest "the fight for an independent Basque homeland will continue". The statement, sent to Basque newspaper Gara
Gara
Gara is a bilingual newspaper published in the city of San Sebastián in the Basque Autonomous Community...

, read "If there is no adequate attention to the root of the problem, the conflict will persist." It went on to state, "they (French and Spanish government) will be forcing us to keep on fighting."

International Reactions to arrest

Across the spectrum the news of López Peña's arrest was cheered.
A statement from the French Prime Minister's called López Peña "one of the historic leaders" of ETA, and added that he had been wanted by police for 20 years.

The statement also said "The success of this operation illustrates again the remarkable quality of the anti-terrorist cooperation between France and Spain."
Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party . He was elected for two terms as Prime Minister of Spain, in the 2004 and 2008 general elections. On 2 April 2011 he announced he will not stand for re-election in 2012...

 hailed the arrests as "certainly another important step in the victory of democracy against terror." He also added that the raid "has delivered a severe blow to the leadership of the terrorist group Eta."

Spanish Interior Minister
Interior minister
An interior ministry is a government ministry typically responsible for policing, national security, and immigration matters. The ministry is often headed by a minister of the interior or minister of home affairs...

 Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba
Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba
Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba is a Spanish politician and a leading figure in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party . He served in the government of Spain as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993 and as Minister of the Interior from 2006 to 2011; in addition, he was First Deputy Prime Minister from...

 told a press conference at the Spanish Embassy in Dakar
Dakar
Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...

, Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

and called the arrests "the hardest set back" ever for ETA. He went on to say "This is not just another police operation in the sense that one of the detained, Francisco Javier López Peña, is in all likelihood at this moment the person with most political and military weight in the terrorist group ETA."
Upon his immediate return to Madrid, precipitated by the first high-ranking ETA arrest in 6 years, Rubalcaba told a press conference that he believed these leaders "are behind or even ordered the latest killings." Rubalcaba called the arrests a big victory in Spain's decades-old battle against ETA, "We are closer to the end, but this is not the end."
He added "The four had a decisive participation in the attacks in Barajas and Castellon", and hence ""It is an operation of an enormous importance."
Amongst the other detained was also Luis Ignacio Iruretagoyena. Of whom Rubalcaba said, "Iruretagoyena is considered by police to be the maximum expert in the making of bombs within ETA."
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