Francisco Javier Velázquez, the director general of the Spanish police, will travel to Venezuelan to work with Hugo Chávez's government in an investigation of members of the Basque separatist group ETA, said Spain's Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

"Venezuela has been one of the countries where some members and supporters of ETA terrorist group have settled," Zapatero said, as reported by AP.

Spain and Venezuela reduced a tense spat on Saturday by issuing a joint statement in which both countries categorically rejected the Basque terrorist group and Venezuela denied any links with Basque separatists after a Spanish judge claimed in a court writ that the Venezuelan government may have collaborated with ETA.

Meanwhile, Venezuela's Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro accused the Colombian government of having aggravated the case in an alleged effort to link Chávez's government with terrorist groups.

"The situation with Spain with regard to the case of the terrorist organization ETA and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been boosted by the Colombian government," Maduro said.

By announcing the dispatch of a top police officer to Venezuela, Zapatero said that his government has pursued and captured members of ETA in Spain and abroad through police and judicial probes which included Venezuela.

Spanish judge Eloy Velasco said in a court writ that the Venezuelan government could have collaborated with ETA. He indicted six members of ETA, most of them exiled in Latin American and seven members of Colombian rebel group FARC on charges including a plot to kill former Colombian President Andrés Pastrana and current President Alvaro Uribe. Velasco identified the suspected ETA member Arturo Cubillas Fontán as a key figure in the relationship between the two groups.

Judge Velasco said in the document that there is evidence that Cubillas Fontán was also the head of ETA in Venezuela, where he lives. Cubillas was hired by a Venezuelan Ministry and could still be a member of Chávez's government, Velasco said.

The alleged ETA member is married to Venezuelan citizen Goizeder Odriozola, a Venezuelan journalist who is a spokeswoman at the Ministry of Agriculture and Land, the Spanish newspaper El País reported.

Chávez said recently that "the Spanish government's response has been acceptable. They said that they have requested information, they did not ask us for an explanation." However, President Chávez still had not referred to the accusations according to which Cubillas Fontán worked in the government.

Translated by Gerardo Cárdenas

Source:ElUniversal.com