Spain:The funeral took place in Madrid yesterday of a young Civil Guard officer shot dead on Saturday morning in France. His colleague suffered critical brain damage.
The ceremony, attended by King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia, Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia, the prime minister and members of his cabinet, was conducted with full military honours before the body was cremated at a private family service.
Raul Centena (24) and Fernando Trapero (23), in plain clothes and unarmed (as is usual when operating outside Spain), were believed to be collaborating with French police on an undercover anti-Eta operation when they recognised three Eta suspects in a supermarket cafe in Capbreton, 50km (31 miles) from the Spanish border.
Spanish interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said he did not believe the guards had fallen into a deliberate ambush, although he has been warning for months that Eta could attack at any time. "It was not a place the Civil Guards used regularly. We think they were there by chance."
He added: "We believe that the three Etarras, two men and a woman, who were sitting at a café table, realised they had been recognised. When the two guards left the cafe to return to their car, the three followed them."
Shouts and then gunshots were heard by customers inside the cafe. Centena died instantly from a single shot to the head, while Trapero was reported yesterday to be in a coma and brain dead.
The terrorists escaped in a grey VW Golf car driven by the woman which was found a few hours later some 70km away near the French Basque town of Mont de Marsan. They then hijacked a second car, driven by a young woman, locking her and her small child in the boot. They were later found unharmed, tied to a tree near Bordeaux.
Yesterday afternoon, French and Spanish police investigating the case confirmed that the VW Golf contained a quantity of explosives, fuses, detonators and other bomb-making equipment. They believe the three were part of an established Eta unit which was about to cross into Spain to carry out a terrorist attack.
This is the first death since Eta ended its ceasefire last summer, although at least eight attempted attacks have been thwarted by the security forces. It is also the first time in 31 years that Eta has killed a Spanish police officer inside France.
French interior minister, Michelle Aliot-Marie, who comes from nearby St Jean de Luz, said that the attack marked a "huge qualitative leap" in Eta's activity.
Within hours of the killing, a meeting was called of politicians and union and business leaders in the parliament building to draft a joint communique and to announce a protest march tomorrow evening.