Arrigorriaga, June 19: The Basque separatist group ETA on Friday staged a car bombing at a parking lot in Spain’s northern Basque Country, killing a policeman, a senior government official said.
The blast occurred around 09:05 (07:05 GMT) in the town of Arrigorriaga, a local official said, adding that one body had been found in the car which exploded.
Patxi Lopez, the head of the regional Basque government, denounced the “dastardly attack by ETA.
“In these difficult and trying times, I wish to express to the family of the deceased policeman our affection and that of the majority of Basque society which no longer tolerates the killer and dastardly ETA.”
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who was in Brussels for an EU summit, expressed his “condemnation of the attack”, said a member of a Spanish delegation.
A local functionary told the regional Vasco Press news agency that the dead man was a police officer. Vasco said several nearby vehicles were damaged in the blast.
There were no claims of responsibility from the Basque separatist group ETA, which often targets security officials.
ETA, considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States, is blamed for the deaths of 825 people in its 40-year campaign to carve a Basque homeland out of northern Spain and southwestern France.
—Agencies