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Spain judge accuses Venezuela government of aiding rebel groups in assassination plot

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A Spanish National Court judge on Monday accused the Venezuelan government of aiding two rebel groups in a plot to assassinate members of the Colombian government in Spain. Judge Eloy Velasco charged six members of the Basque separatist group ETA and seven members of the Colombian rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) with subverting the constitutional order by collaborating to assassinate Colombian officials, including President Alvaro Uribe and his predecessor Andres Pastrana. The indictment accuses Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his administration with assisting the collaboration. Velasco found that Arturo Cubillas Fontan, former director of the Venezuelan Ministry of Agriculture, served as a key link between the groups, introducing members of ETA to FARC personal in Venezuela. A Spanish magistrate has ordered the Colombian and Venezuela governments to surrender the accused individuals to Spain. Both ETA and FARC are listed as terrorist organizations in the EU and the US. In January, a Spanish judge found that ETA attempted to assassinate former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar in 2001 with a rocket launcher. In April, alleged ETA leader Jurdan Martitegi Lizaso was arrested in France, and a Spanish judge charged him with murder for a May 2008 car bombing that killed a Spanish policeman. In 2008, Chavez denounced a Colombian attack on a FARC outpost based in Ecuador as a "war crime." Colombia retaliated stating that Chavez was providing financing and that Columbia would seek to have Chavez charged before the International Criminal Court for supporting the "genocide" of Colombian citizens by leftist militants.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 01, 2010 (boomark / email).