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| - A former leader of Basque separatist group ETA was arrested on a European warrant in France Thursday as he reported to police for a regular bail check-in. David Pla, 45, was arrested in the town of Hendaye in southwest France on a European warrant sought by Spain and validated by a Paris appeals court last November, his lawyer Xantiana Cachenaut told AFP. He will be handed over to Spanish authorities in the coming hours or days. Pla was arrested in France in September 2015, at the same time as ETA co-leader Iratxe Sorzabal, in what was then seen as a major blow to the armed group which has since disbanded. They were convicted in February last year and sentenced to five and seven years in prison respectively for "association with criminals with a terrorist aim" between 2008 and 2015. Pla was freed on bail shortly after, having served most of his term awaiting trial. Cachenaut expressed "concern" about her client's arrest, which she described as "disgraceful from a judicial point of view." Once he is handed over to Spain, she said, "there will be arguments about his freedom before a Spanish judge (but)... we no longer have much faith in the justice system." According to Cachenaut, Pla is accused in Spain of having had a clandestine meeting with ETA members in southwest France in 2008, event though she claims French investigators have said he was not in the region at the time. Basque party Euskal Herria Bai on Thursday described Pla's arrest as "political" and denounced "a climate of confrontation founded on past events" pursued by the French and Spanish governments. There are about 200 people in prison in Spain over links to ETA, which disbanded in 2018 after a decades-long campaign for Basque independence in northern Spain and southwestern France which is estimated to have killed 853 people. Sorzabal has yet to finish serving her sentence in France. cas/mlr/sjw/bmm
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