Madrid, Spain (CNN) -- Police arrested a suspected top computer programmer for the Basque separatist group ETA in France Tuesday, the Spanish Interior Ministry said.
The arrest comes a day after the separatist group's latest cease-fire announcement. Despite the group's declaration of a permanent general and verifiable cease-fire, police will not stop pressuring ETA, the Interior Ministry said.
The programmer is accused of playing a key role in the group's logistics by designing the computer codes that operatives used to secretly communicate, the ministry said.
Police have been on the trail of the programmer for months, the ministry said. And authorities in Spain arrested the programmer's girlfriend, also suspected of aiding ETA, according to the ministry.
Police are also investigating whether the programmer allegedly helped Colombian FARC rebels with computer issues, but they have not confirmed a link with the leftist guerrilla group, the ministry said.
In a statement released to the Basque newspaper Gara -- where it typically releases information -- ETA said Monday that it declared a permanent general and verifiable cease-fire as a "firm commitment towards a process to achieve a lasting resolution and toward an end to the armed confrontation".
Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said that the government wants to see a statement from ETA calling for a definitive end, which he said Monday's statement did not do.
"Am I more tranquil today than before? Yes," Perez said Monday. "Is this the end? I would say no".
Spain's Socialist government has repeatedly called for ETA to announce unilaterally a definitive end to its decades of separatist violence, blamed for more than 800 deaths, and a pledge to lay down its weapons.
ETA wants Basque independence in northern Spain and southwest France. CNN
