2 Basques Win Freedom in Daring Break

A “commando unit” of 10 men broke into a prison in southern France early today, seized the warden and his daughter, and freed two Basque separatist prisoners before releasing the captives and fleeing, police said.

Three members of the group, dressed in police uniforms, drove into the prison in Pau in two cars and a small truck at about 1 a.m. Seven others later entered the prison and joined the jailbreak operation, police said.

The men, described by police as a “commando unit,” took the prison warden and his daughter captive during the raid and later released them unharmed at a campground near Pau, about 30 miles north of the Spanish border in southwest France.

Police said the men freed Marie-France Heguy and Jean-Gabriel Mouesca, members of the Basque separatist group Iparretarrak, a splinter faction of the guerrilla group ETA, the Basque-language acronym for Basque Homeland and Freedom. Iparretarrak means “those from the north” in Basque.

Mouesca, 27, was jailed in January, 1985, for five years for a 1983 arson attack on a villa in Ascain, near Pau. Heguy, 25, was sentenced last June to four years in prison for possession of arms and explosives.

Police have attributed numerous terrorist attacks against tourists and police in Spain to the splinter group since it surfaced in 1973.

Authorities are searching for the guerrillas and the fugitives.