Basque leader apologizes to ETA victims

MADRID — The jailed leader of the Basque independence movement, Arnaldo Otegi, apologizes to victims of the militant separatist group ETA in a new book, according to extracts published Sunday.

For the first time the leftwing independent leader offers “his most sincere apologies” for exacerbating the “pain and humiliation” of victims of ETA, which announced last year it had abandoned its armed struggle. Arnaldo Otegi was jailed for six years in 2009 for attempting to reform Batasuna, the separatist party banned in 2003.

In the book compiled from interviews, “El tiempo de las luces” (“The time of light”), which comes out on Sept. 28, the Basque leader said he wanted to make amends, according to extracts published in the Gara newspaper. “If as spokesman (and I speak in the name of all spokesmen of Batasuna), I have added in any way to the pain, suffering or humiliation of the families of the victims of armed actions by ETA, I want to present here my most sincere apologies, accompanied by an ‘I am sorry’ from the heart,” he wrote. — AFP