Spaniard freed, 3 killed; Basque issue gets hotter

April 15, 1981

Suspected Basque guerrillas released a leading Spanish industrialist, ending one of the country's longest-running kidnappings, police sources said. After a 90-day ordeal, Luis Suner Sanchis was found after a telephone tip-off in a poplar grove outside Alberite. Mr. Suner was snatched by six gunmen from his frozen-food factory near Valencia on Jan. 13.

But elsewhere Tuesday, Basque guerrillas assassinated two retired Army officers and a business executive in Spain's worst day of political violence this year. The new killings raised the possibility that military pressure might force the government to declare a state of emergency in the Basque regi on.