Three ETA Slayings in 24 Hours Shake Spain

MADRID: The Basque separatist organization ETA struck for the third time in less than 24 hours Tuesday, killing a high-profile businessman and adding to fears that a new wave of separatist violence is in the offing. As mourners in Madrid and Granada commemorated the victims of two earlier slayings, a gunman shot Francisco Arratibel in the Basque city of Toloso during a carnival celebration. Arratibel had admitted earlier that he served as a go-between for citizens kidnapped by ETA and said that he was still on their hit list after surviving two previous assassination attempts. His murder came only hours after a car bomb exploded in Granada, killing one man and destroying a four-story apartment building. Shortly thereafter, a 68-year-old Supreme Court judge was shot at point blank outside his apartment in downtown Madrid. "It looks like ETA is opening up all its channels for killing," said Interior Minister Belloch. Politicians have been warning against a new round of violence for months, TIME's Jane Walker reports. "Spain's major democratic parties had a united front on how to fight terrorism. It broke when the Basque Nationalists began pushing for talks with ETA." The separatists are holding two kidnap victims as bargaining chips to pressure authorities into allowing sentenced Basques to serve their terms near their home towns.