Spanish police said a former councilor from Spain's ruling Socialist Party was shot dead in the Basque town of Mondragon on Friday, two days before the country's parliamentary elections.
Basque police look at blood stains as they collect evidence outside the house of a Isaias Carrasco after an attack in Mondragon, northern Spain, March 7, 2008. Carrasco, a former councillor from Spain's ruling Socialist Party, was shot dead outside his house in the Basque Country town of Mondragon on Friday two days before a national election, police said. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) The 42-year-old councilor Isaias Carrasco was shot in the back of the neck, a murder style typical of the Basque separatist group ETA, the El Pais newspaper said on its web site.
Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the Spanish government blamed ETA for the murder.
"ETA assassinated Isaias Carrasco in Mondragon," Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told a press conference.
The ruling Socialist Party and the opposition Popular Party both called off their election campaigns on Friday, the last day election activities are allowed before the Sunday's vote.
Spain's government and ETA had sought peace through talks in 2006, but in December that year a deadly attack at Madrid's Barajas airport killed two people.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero halted negotiations with ETA after the group called off its 15-month ceasefire in June2007.
ETA, which is classified as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union, has waged a four-decade campaign of violence to seek independence for a Basque state, killing hundreds of people.
Source: Xinhua
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