Full honours for shot policeman

A SPANISH policeman was buried with full military honours yesterday, a day after he was killed working undercover in France by gunmen from the guerrilla group ETA.

The first ETA murder in almost a year comes three months before a general election in which the government’s handling of the conflict is sure to play a major role.

People applauded when the coffin of 24-year-old Raul Centeno was carried into the parade ground of the Civil Guard headquarters in the Spanish capital.

King Juan Carlos, flanked by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, laid a medal on his coffin.

Doctors in the southern French city of Bayonne said his colleague Fernando Trapero, 23, appeared to be brain dead.

The men were gunned down in Capbreton, near Biarritz, after a chance encounter with ETA suspects they had been watching as part of a joint operation with French police.

Reaction among Spanish politicians, who have traded accusations over the issue since the Socialists won power in 2004, was unusual in its unity.

The conservative opposition Popular Party signed a declaration with other parties condemning the attack and backing the government’s fight against ETA.

Tomorrow politicians from both parties will march in an anti-ETA rally in Madrid.