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“Spain calls off election campaign after attack blamed on ETA”
AFP ^ | Denholm Barnetson | Denholm Barnetson
Posted on 03/08/2008 3:30:14 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Spain calls off election campaign after attack blamed on ETA

by Denholm Barnetson

Fri Mar 7, 3:52 PM ET

SNIPPET: “Spain ended its election campaign early after a former politician from the ruling Socialist Party was shot and killed Friday in the northern Basque region in an attack blamed on the separatist group ETA.

Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, tipped to win a second mandate in Sunday’s vote, immediately accused ETA of seeking to upset the electoral process.

“The terrorists wanted to interfere today in the peaceful manifestation of the will of the people at the ballot box,” he said in a televised address.

“But Spanish democracy has demonstrated that it does not allow challenges from those who oppose its basic principles and its most essential values.”

Zapatero came to power in a surprise election win in March 2004 amid the shock of train bombings in Madrid by Islamic extremists that killed 191 people just three days earlier.

Isaias Carrasco, a former town councillor and member of the Socialist Party, was shot in the Basque town of Mondragon at around 1:30 pm (1230 GMT), and died shortly afterwards, the Basque interior ministry said.

Witnesses quoted by Spanish media said he was shot several times at close range in front of his wife and daughter outside his home.

The shooting came two weeks after the government raised its terror alert level to maximum, fearing an ETA attack to coincide with the election.”