SPAIN:Two alert trainee policemen may have averted a potential massacre aboard the SantanderPlymouth ferry sailing from the northern Spanish port city.
A man arrested in Santander bus station on Monday was identified as the known Eta terrorist Aritz Arginzoniz. He was armed with a Smith & Wesson pistol and carried a backpack containing a timing device, fuses and information on three possible targets, including the ferry and the city's main courthouse.
The arrest came about when two police cadets, on work experience from the police academy near Madrid, became suspicious about a young couple hanging around the bus station.
Police say they are still searching for the vehicle which they believe contains the explosives. The two are known to have been staying in a campsite outside Santander since July 1st.
The interior minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, confirmed yesterday that Arginzoniz (21), who has a record for organising kale baroka (street violence) in cities and towns across the Basque Country, was preparing to detonate a powerful car bomb.
He has been on the police most-wanted list since last December and was accompanied by his girlfriend, Saioa Sánchez, also wanted by police, but she managed to escape from the busy bus station.
The couple formed part of the Vizcaya "commando" that was broken up by the Ertzaintza (Basque police) at the end of last year with the discovery of about 230kg of explosives in Amorebieta, near Bilbao.
Eta has been under considerable police pressure since ending its ceasefire just over a month ago. Yesterday two alleged etarras were detained by French police near Angeloume.
Over the past six weeks eight others were arrested in France, two more in Canada and one each in Spain and Mexico, and a car containing a 100kg bomb was discovered by civil guards near the Portuguese border last month.
Mr Rubalcaba said he believed a major terrorist attack had been aborted in Santander, at least the third in the past two weeks.