Madrid: Spanish authorities admitted
on Saturday that five men on a surveillance video they had
identified as Basque "terrorists" were in fact Spanish firemen
on holiday.
France and Spain had yesterday released images of the
five taken on a closed-circuit television camera at a
supermarket outside Paris, saying they were members of the
Basque separatist group ETA and suspected of involvement in
the killing of a French policeman on Tuesday.
"This morning (Saturday) we contacted the French
authorities to tell them that the images were those of people
working as firemen for the Catalan regional government," said
a spokeswoman for the police and fire service in the
northeastern region of Catalonia.
She said the men were in France on a climbing holiday
and were recognised by colleagues in Spain who alerted
authorities to the mistake.
Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba
admitted an "error" and said the authorities "could probably
have done things better."
A Spanish police statement on Friday had described the
five as "ETA terrorists" and called for "cooperation from the
public to identify them and find them."
Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de
la Vega admitted that the "confusion" was regrettable but said
it was vital "to continue to work as we have done" to combat
ETA.
One of the five firemen shown on the video said he was
stunned by the affair.
"What bothers me is that we saw on the Internet that we
were considered, not suspects, but actual members of ETA.
That's the problem, that we were faced with an unwarranted
accusation," he told Spanish national radio by telephone.
"We are going to file a complaint... because of all the
harm that this has caused, the worry to our families."
France's director general of police said the five men
had today presented themselves to the police station at Melun,
southeast of Paris.
But he added that the confusion "does not call into
question" ETA's suspected involvement in the killing.
The 52-year-old French police officer was fatally
wounded during a gun battle that erupted after a routine
police check near Dammarie-Les-Lys southeast of Paris on
Tuesday.
French investigators said they were working on the
assumption that ETA was responsible although there has been no
claim of responsibility from the group itself.
French anti-terrorism police arrested a 27-year-old man
who identified himself as an ETA member and were hunting five
others after the murder, a French judicial official said on
Wednesday.
It would be the first time a French policeman has been
killed by the group in France, where five top leaders have
been arrested over the past two years as a result of
stepped-up cross-border cooperation.
ETA, listed as a terrorist group by the European Union
and the United States, is blamed for 828 deaths in its 41-year
campaign for independence for the Basque region of northern
Spain and southwestern France.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, March 21, 2010, 00:30