ETA suspect on run since 2007 detained in Hendaye

Iñaki Imaz Munduate, a suspected member of ETA who featured on the Civil Guard's most-wanted list, was arrested Monday in the French border town of Hendaye, anti-terrorist forces confirmed.

Munduate had been on the run since the Urederra cell of the organization was broken up in 2007 and, at that time, was a so-called legal member of ETA, meaning he was unknown to security forces. As well as forming part of an active military unit, Munduate was also part of ETA's propaganda machinery who had "contributed to the huge communicative campaign surrounding the declaration of an end to the armed campaign," said the Interior Ministry. Munduate was formerly resident in San Sebastián, where he stored munitions at his apartment and received written information that he used to plan future attacks.

The arrest took place in a Hendaye street and the police was expected to conduct a search of the apartment Munduate had been renting later on Monday. The suspected terrorist had been in France a few days after hiding out for several years in Ireland with a false identity provided by ETA. Several arrests of ETA members have taken place in the British Isles this year. "Their presence [there] is part of the strategy designed by ETA to relocate part of its clandestine infrastructure in order to avoid the police pressure being exerted on it in France," Interior Ministry Jorge Fernández Díaz said.

Thus far in 2012, 18 ETA members have been arrested in Britain, Ireland, Spain and France.