Body of missing longtime ETA member turns up in French morgue

Body of ETA member turns up in French morgue

BAYONNE, France — The body of a longtime member of the armed Basque group ETA has turned up in a morgue in France, nearly a year after his mysterious disappearance, a committee of his supporters said Friday.

Jon Anza Ortunez, 47, was last seen April 18. In a statement released to a Spanish Basque newspaper in May, ETA claimed him as a member and blamed Spanish police for a role in his disappearance — a claim Spain denied.

Anza was identified by his fingerprints, Bayonne prosecutor Anna Kayanakis told a news conference. An autopsy will be performed Monday, she said.

ETA also said Anza had been transporting a large sum of money between the French cities of Bayonne, which is not far from the border with Spain, and Toulouse for the group when he vanished.

Anza’s body lay in a morgue in Toulouse unidentified for 10 months until a connection was made between his disappearance and the corpse. It was not immediately clear how that was done.

French officials told Anza’s family that he had fallen ill on a street on April 29 and was taken to a hospital in Toulouse, where he died May 11. At the time, no one was reportedly able to identify him, said the Jon Anza Collective, a committee organized after his disappearance.

The family was told that the body remained in the morgue since then, the collective said, confirming a report that appeared in Le Parisien newspaper.

Anza spent 21 years in a Spanish prison for ETA membership then moved across the border to Ahetze in French Basque country.

In May, at the request of Anza’s family, Bayonne’s prosecutor opened a probe into the disappearance. Following the ETA claim about the money Anza was allegedly carrying when he disappeared, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary inquiry in part for suspected terrorism financing.

Kayanakis, the prosecutor, said an inquiry would be held to determine if there was anything abnormal in the initial probe.

ETA is a separatist organization that has killed more than 825 people since launching a violent campaign in the 1960s aimed at carving out an independent Basque homeland in an area of northern Spain and southwest France. The European Union and the U.S. consider it a terrorist organization.