Suspected Basque terrorist leaders arrested in France The couple were detained at a hotel in Mâcon, north of Lyon, in a joint operation by French counter-terrorist intelligence officers and Spain's paramilitary civil guard. Both Izaskun Lesaka and her boyfriend Joseba Iturbe were armed but put up no resistance when a police swat squad burst into their room. The pair are considered to be at the top of the hierarchy of ETA, which has killed more than 800 people over the past four decades in its fight for independence for the northern Spanish region. Five years ago, Lesaka escaped before a house in the Loire valley was raided. The premises were described by police as being "a chemical experimental laboratory for the intensive production of pentrita," the principle ingredient of explosives used in 11 bombings by ETA in 2007 and 2008. Last January a Paris court sentenced her in her absence to seven years in prison for her part in the bomb factory. She was named as the head of ETA's "military" section by Spanish intelligence in 2010.