A Spanish policeman shot by Basque separatists remained in a critical condition, a hospital official said today, the day after the officer and a colleague were shot in southwestern France.
Fernando Trapero (23) was shot in the small port of Capbreton, 20 km from the southern city of Biarritz, along with Raul Centeno (24) who was killed outright.
The Spanish officers were engaged with French police in an undercover operation targeting suspected members of the armed Basque separatist movement ETA.
Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said yesterday it appeared the policemen and ETA suspects had come across each other in a cafeteria by chance and that after recognising each other, the two policemen left.
They were gunned down in a nearby supermarket car park, the first killing by the Basque separatist group in almost a year and ETA's first fatal attack in France since 1976.
French police continued to hunt for two men and a woman who briefly took a woman hostage after they fled the scene. Saturday's killing follows at least four attempted bombings in northern Spain since August that have been blamed on ETA.
ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades of armed struggle for independence for Basque territories in northern Spain and southern France. Security analysts say ETA has been seriously weakened by the arrest of hundreds of members in the last decade.