MADRID, Spain (AP):

A senior Spanish prosecutor said yesterday he will travel to Colombia to investigate possible links between leftist rebels in that country and the armed Basque separatist group ETA.

Colombian officials say a computer captured in a raid on a camp of the rebel group FARC contained emails suggesting that FARC and ETA could have planned "criminal activity" in Spain, said Javier Zaragoza, chief prosecutor at the National Court.

Email contents

Colombian officials have said that emails from 2003, which they have not revealed publicly, mention supposed FARC plans to assassinate Colombian politicians living in Spain.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Zaragoza said the correspondence also shows that several ETA members have trained in rebel camps along the border between Venezuela and Colombia, but it is not clear when.

"We did not know anything about this relationship," Zaragoza said.

Following orders

He said he will travel to Bogota in coming weeks and has ordered Spanish police to prepare a report on the possibility of links between the FARC and ETA. Both are classified as terrorist organisations by the European Union and the United States.

"I cannot venture to say if there are solid links. We have to keep investigating," the prosecutor said.

But Spanish government officials have said they do not give much credibility to the alleged link.

Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said this week: "ETA tends to work on its own."

An official at the Interior Ministry said it had no knowledge of ETA and the FARC having planned an attack in Madrid.