Spanish police defuse suspected ETA bomb

MADRID, Spain (Reuters) -- Police in northern Spain have defused a bomb in a courthouse after receiving a telephone warning from Basque separatist group ETA, Spanish National Radio has said.

The device was discovered in the building in the Basque town of Eibar on the 22nd anniversary of the Spanish constitution, the station said.

Basque pro-independence groups want the constitution changed to give them total freedom from the central state.

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"The bomb contained three kilos (6.6 lb) of explosive, probably part of the dynamite stolen in France, and a timer," a spokesman for the Basque government said.

In 1999, during a 14-month truce, ETA stole eight tonnes of dynamite in France, only some of which has been recovered.

The Basque newspaper Gara said in its online edition that a man called on Tuesday night at around 2200 GMT with the bomb warning.

In the most violent year in the region in almost a decade, ETA has admitted to killing 20 people so far.

The group resumed killing this year after its unilateral ceasefire was called off last December.

On October 30 this year, ETA set off a car bomb during morning rush hour in Madrid that killed a Supreme Court judge, his driver and his bodyguard.

The blast also injured more than 60 people on a nearby bus including the driver, who died nine days later.

Authorities also blame the group for the fatal shooting in November of a former Socialist government minister.

Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar led around one million Spaniards in streets protests against the murder.

In total, its violent campaign for an independent Basque state has claimed at least 800 lives since 1968.

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