The biggest catch was Javier- Arizcurten-Ruiz known as Kantauri who is head of Eta's military wing
The biggest catch was Javier- Arizcurten-Ruiz, known as "Kantauri", who is head of Eta's military wing. But police said they had also arrested Irantxu Gallastegui Sodupe, the most wanted woman in Spain, who is believed to have been involved in the assassination of the young conservative politician, Miguel Angel Blanco, in July 1997. This pair, and two other suspected Eta members, were arrested as they left a hotel in the 11th arrondissement, near the Place de la Bastille in eastern Paris Only Ms Gallastegui Sodupe put up any resistance. Two other Eta members were arrested in co-ordinated raids on a hotel and an apartment in the French capital after a lengthy inquiry and surveillance by French and Spanish security services. IN A coup for the French and Spanish authorities, anti- terrorist police arrested three leading members of the Basque separatist organisation, Eta, in Paris yesterday - hours before a visit from the Spanish Prime Minister. This week an investigative judge is expected to make a much- delayed decision on whether to proceed with criminal cases for "poisoning" against a dozen senior officials also involved in the affair, including Jean-Pierre Allain, then deputy head of the French blood service, who has since become professor of haematology at Cambridge University..
As a result, it was said, the use of a rival American test was blocked and delayed.All three ministers denied this version of events, as did the man who at the time was head of Diagnostics Pasteur, Jean Weber, despite documentation that he led a successful protectionist campaign through his contacts in the Fabius government.Victims and their families were outraged that the court made no attempt to cross- examine the accused or witnesses, despite apparent discrepancies in their statements to the court.Jean-Frangois Mattei, a liberal member of the French parliament, described the trial as a "triple failure - politically, judicially and morally".The affair is not over. The two junior ministers were charged with allowing the state blood service to use old blood products for haemo-philiacs rather than incur the cost of destroying them.The main case against the ministers rested on the claim that the Fabius government intervened on behalf of Diagonistics Pasteur, a French company struggling to complete its own system for testing blood for HIV. You have blood on your hands, Mr Herve."The three former ministers were accused of having delayed the systematic checking of blood stocks for commercial reasons from March or April until August of 1985, exposing 300 to 600 people to the Aids virus About half have since died. Joelle Bouchet, whose son caught Aids in similar circumstances, shouted: "Murderous state The justice system is its accomplice ... But the Cour de Justice de la Repub-lique, a panel of three judges and twelve politicians hearing its first case, decided no punishment should be imposed."Why not give them the Legion d'honneur," shouted Patrice Gaudin, father of two haemophiliac children who died of Aids after being given HIV-infected blood products. His former social affairs minister, Georgina Dufoix, was found not guilty of manslaughter and bodily harm but reprimanded for incompetence. The third defendant, the former junior health minister and Mayor of Rennes, Edmond Herve, was found guilty of failing to prevent contaminated blood- stock samples from being used in two cases.
The former prime minister Laurent Fabius was cleared by the semi-judicial, semi- political court, which accepted his claim that he had accelerated, not delayed, the systematic checking of blood stocks for HIV. VICTIMS AND their families reacted with cynicism, outrage but little surprise yesterday when a special court in Paris absolved two former ministers and imposed no punishment on a third for their role in the contamination of French blood banks with the Aids virus in the mid-1980s. The firm is also heavily involved in the Lambeth education action zone in south London.Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the biggest classroom union, the National Union of Teachers, said the east London borough had started to "turn the corner". He said: "Our members feel the authority, whilst not having done everything to turn things round, has made tremendous strides.".
CFBT, a not-for-profit consultancy that is a main supplier of Ofsted inspectors, would also be a possible contender.Hackney brought in CFBT last year as consultants to turn round Rams Episcopal Primary, a failing school. She was also said to have taken an undue interest in visiting Chinese delegations.A New York Times investigation, published on Saturday, said that China was suspected of having developed miniaturised nuclear warheads on the basis of blueprints stolen from Los Alamos in the mid-Eighties, thereby clawing back much of a 20-year technology gap with the United States.While noting that the security lapse - if such it was - took place under Presidents Reagan and Bush, the paper accused the Clinton administration of hushing up the affair to pursue its objective of a "security partnership" with China.Members of the US Congress were swift to call for full information about the affair and tighter security at Los Alamos and other sensitive installations. She worked as a secretary at the Los Alamos laboratory until recently, and reportedly raised eyebrows in the Eighties when she was invited to China to deliver an academic paper on nuclear processing. His identification yesterday came hard on the heels of an announcement that as many as 700 Energy Department staff and employees of the National Laboratory at Los Alamos would have to take regular lie detector tests.The measure was seen as a belated attempt by the administration to calm fears about the scale of Chinese spying in the United States.Wen Ho Lee's wife, Sylvia, is also said to be under suspicion.