Spain Cancels Election Rallies After Murder

Spain's political parties suspended campaigning in advance of tomorrow's general election after a former town councilor was shot dead yesterday by suspected Basque separatists.

Isaias Carrasco, 42, was killed when he left the home he shared with his wife and three children in the Basque town of Mondragón at about 1.30pm.

His wife and daughter came running out when they heard the shots. Carrasco was rushed to a local hospital, but died shortly after. He had been shot several times, twice in the back of his head, by a lone gunman, who witnesses said was wearing a false beard, while a driver waited in a getaway car

At a press conference in Madrid the Socialist party prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, pledged to track down the killers. "The terrorists have today tried to interfere in the peaceful manifestation of the will of the people at the polls," he said. "Eta has already been defeated by democracy - rejected and isolated by Spaniards as a whole and by Basque society ... its members have no other future than jail."

Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, the interior minister, also blamed Eta for the killing, the fifth by the group since a ceasefire was broken in 2006. "This is a vile and cowardly act which deserves our total rejection," he said. Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy, the leader of the opposition Popular party (PP), agreed to suspend their final rallies due to be held last night.

Spain had been on alert for a terrorist attack during the campaign.

Last month Perez Rubalcaba said he expected Eta to attempt a deadly attack. Since 1977, Eta has killed 20 people in the run-up to elections in efforts to bring Basque separatism to the head of the political agenda. Zapatero was elected four years ago partly as a result of a protest vote against the then PP government's handling of the aftermath of the Madrid bombings of March 11 2004, in which 191 people were killed and 1,800 injured.

The PP government had initially tried to blame Eta for the attacks, despite evidence that Islamists were responsible. Three days later the Socialists swept to power. It was not clear yesterday what effect this latest killing would have on the election, which they are expected to win by a slim majority.

Politicians from all parties called on Spaniards to show their rejection of Eta by turning out to vote in large numbers.

Juan Jose Ibarretxe, president of the Basque regional government, said: "We refuse to make a political interpretation of this murder two days before the elections because that would give Eta a political role that it ... doesn't deserve." Polls in the Basque country show that about a third of the 2 million population support independence, but only a tiny percentage back Eta's tactics.

The group, which has killed more than 800 people in a 40-year campaign for Basque independence, is classified as a terrorist group by the US and EU.

Eta declared a permanent ceasefire in March 2006, and began negotiating with the government in an attempt to bring an end to the conflict. But the ceasefire was formally called off last June and Eta killed two Spanish undercover policemen in France in December.

According to Basque police Carrasco, a former councilor with the Socialists, had rejected the bodyguards traditionally provided to politicians in the Basque country. He lived with his wife and three children away from the center of the town, making him an easy target.