MADRID, March 7, 2008 (AFP) - Separatist group ETA, blamed for Friday's killing of a former Socialist politician in Spain's Basque region, has killed well over 800 people since it started its campaign four decades ago.

Including Friday's murder of Isaias Carrasco in the northern town of Mondragon -- which has not yet been claimed by ETA -- the government says the organisation has killed a total of 820 people in Spain.

In December last year it also killed two Spanish gendarmes in the Basque region of southwestern France.

The first ETA attack was on June 7, 1968.

The group's full name stands for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, which means Basque Homeland and Freedom in the Basque language.

ETA demands an independent Basque homeland in the Basque autonomous region of northern Spain and parts of southwestern France and also lays claim to the Spanish region of Navarra.

Since 2001 it has been on the European Union's list of terrorist organisations.

Its deadliest single bombing occurred in June 1987, when an attack in the parking lot of a Barcelona supermarket claimed 21 lives and injured 45 people.

Many ETA attacks have been directed at Spain's national security forces -- in July 1986 a car bomb killed 12 paramilitary police officers.

One of its most high-profile bombings was in December 1973, during the last years of the dictator Francisco Franco when they blew the car of his presumed successor Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, killing him instantly.