Jailing 'will not affect peace': Basque party leader

The head of an outlawed pro-independence Basque party who was released yesterday from a Madrid jail on bail has said that his imprisonment would not affect peace efforts in the northern troubled Basque region.

Arnaldo Otegi, the leader of the Batasuna party, which is seen as the political wing of the armed Basque separatist group ETA, was jailed in the early hours of Thursday by a Spanish judge who accused him of being a leader of the armed group.

His arrest followed a court hearing on Wednesday, hours after a car bomb blamed on ETA injured 52 people in Madrid.

Otegi’s lawyer, Jone Goirizelaia, and other Batasuna party members charged that the Spanish government was using the judge’s order as way to take revenge for the blast, the sixth blamed on ETA since Spain offered the militant group peace talks if it renounces violence.

“My own imprisonment does not alter the hope for peace,” Otegi told reporters when he was leaving the high security prison of Soto del Real in the outskirts of Madrid.