Canada arrests suspected ETA member

MADRID, June 20 (Reuters) Canadian police have arrested a suspected member of armed Basque group ETA, their second such detention in a week, Spain's interior ministry said today.

Canadian Mounties arrested Ivan Apaolaza Sancho, 35, in Quebec after discovering he was carrying false papers and lacked permission to stay in Canada, the ministry said.

He had been sought by Spain and was on a European Union list of terrorism suspects for his possible involvement in attacks after ETA broke a ceasefire in 1999.

No one at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police nor the office of Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day was immediately available for comment.

Earlier this month ETA, which is fighting for Basque independence from Spain, called off another ceasefire which had lasted 14 months.

That truce had effectively ended in December when Madrid airport was bombed -- an attack that killed two.

Today's arrest brought to six the number of ETA arrests in June, following last week's detention of 50-year-old Bittor Tejedor Bilbao in Vancouver, three in France and another in Mexico. In April, three suspects were arrested in Britain.

Deportation and extradition cases involving political refugee claimants can take months or years to complete under Canadian laws.

Spain said Apaolaza may have been involved in a car bombing in January 2000 that killed army officer Pedro Antonio Blanco Garcia, ETA's first murder after ending its 1999 ceasefire.

In abandoning its truce, ETA vowed to attack the Spanish government ''on all fronts''.

REUTERS PDS BST0226