DPA

LONDON A SUSPECTED member of the Basque separatist group ETA can be extradited to Spain for trial on a number of alleged terrorism-related offences, Britain’s High Court ruled on Friday.

High Court judges in London said that there were “no bars” to the extradition of Eneko Gogeaskoetxea Arronategui, 44, on human rights grounds.

Arronategui, a computer programme designer, was arrested on a European arrest warrant in the British university town of Cambridge last summer.

The Spanish authorities requested his extradition, but his lawyers argued that he would not receive a fair trial in Spain. They said their client would face “a flagrant denial of justice” because he would be tried on the basis of a confession obtained from a co-defendant, even though that co-defendant had been held in communicado and without access to a lawyer.

“There are no bars to the extradition of the appellant to Spain and such (extradition) orders would not be incompatible with his human rights under section 21 of the 1998 Human Rights Act,” the High Court ruling said.

The allegations against Arronategui include positioning grenade launchers aimed at Madrid’s Barajas Airport and a police station, and an alleged assassination attempt on King Juan Carlos of Spain in 1997.