MADRID: A judge in Spain yesterday summoned international monitors who met with the armed Basque separatists ETA for questioning over the whereabouts of the group’s fugitive members, a court source said.
Judge Ismael Moreno at the National Court in Madrid “summoned the six verifiers as witnesses”, the source said, referring to the members of the International Verification Commission.
The commission, which includes an Indian, a Sri Lankan, a Briton and a South African, on Friday announced it had verified that ETA had given up a cache of weapons as the first step towards disarmament.
It has been monitoring a ceasefire by ETA but is not recognised by the Spanish government, which insists ETA disband without conditions.
The commission released a video filmed last month of masked ETA members presenting the weapons cache to two members of the commission in an undisclosed location in the Basque Country.
Pope Francis inducts new cardinals
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis urged 19 freshman cardinals to shun rivalries and factions at an induction ceremony yesterday where his scandal-plagued predecessor, pope Benedict, made a surprise appearance.
It was the first time Benedict attended a papal rite since his resignation a year ago. His presence offered the remarkable scene of a former pope, a reigning pope and a potentially future pope in St Peter’s Basilica at the same time.
Sixteen of the new appointees are “cardinal electors” who will join 106 existing cardinals who are also under 80 and thus eligible to enter a conclave to elect a pope from among their own ranks. They come from Italy, Germany, Britain, Nicaragua, Canada, Ivory Coast, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Chile, Burkina Faso, the Philippines and Haiti. The non-electors come from Italy, Spain and Saint Lucia.
Agencies
