Spanish prosecutors sought Friday the arrest of five suspected ETA members accused of conspiring with Colombia`s FARC rebels to assassinate high-profile Colombian targets in Europe.

The five men were wanted for `belonging to a terrorist group, collaboration with an armed group and conspiring with a view to committing terrorist murders,` prosecutors said.

Their objective was to perpetrate attacks in Spain and elsewhere in Europe against high-profile Colombian figures targeted by FARC, a Marxist rebel group seeking the overthrow of the Colombian government.

Targets included former Colombian president Andres Pastrana, Noemi Sanin -- Bogota`s ambassador to Madrid between 2002 and 2008 -- current Vice-President Francisco Santos, and former Bogota mayor Antans Mockus.

The suspected ETA members wanted were named as Martin Capa, Inaki Dominguez, Jose Ignacio Echarte, Jose Angel Urtiaga and Arturo Cubillas.

The case, based on documents seized in 1999, will be examined in coming weeks by Spanish judge Eloy Velasco.

A Spanish justice official said the two groups had collaborated on `the setting-up in Colombia between July and mid-August 2003 of training in explosives handling` in which at least four Basque separatists participated.

The information partially confirms a report broadcast on Thursday by Spain`s Cadena Ser radio which said an ETA document, seized in France, had provided details of contacts and exchanges between ETA and FARC.

The radio report said the two organisations `had at least three operational meetings in Colombia` in 2003.

ETA, identified as a terrorist movement by the European Union and United States, has conducted a 40-year campaign for independence for the Basque country in northern Spain and southwest France.

This was the first time that an ETA document had mentioned such exchanges, though FARC documents previously cited by Spanish television have spoken of contacts with ETA.

The reports said the contacts did not go beyond simple discussions and there was no sign of any `operational` cooperation between the two organisations.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe in June condemned the alleged links between the two groups, referring to a Spanish television programme which reported on material found on the computer of FARC`s former deputy leader Paul Reyes, killed by the Colombian military in March.

In the documentary, a former guerilla identified as Carlos claimed ETA members had been trained in Colombia and ETA had taught FARC how to use booby-trapped cars.

In the Reyes computer material, it was alleged, FARC had asked ETA to carry out attacks and kidnappings on its behalf, in particular against Sanin amd Santos.

But no act of violence claimed by FARC has taken place in Europe.

ETA is held reponsible for the deaths of 824 people in its four-decade long campaign.

There are estimated to be about 9,000 active FARC guerillas, chiefly in the south and east of the country, who are holding between 350 and 700 prisoners.

Of these 28 are described as `political` and FARC wants to trade them for 500 of its own men captured by government forces.

FARC`s best-known hostage Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate, was held for more than six years.

She was rescued in a dramatic military ruse on July 2 that freed 14 other hostages -- with rebels being tricked into believing the group were to be transferred to another detention centre on the orders of superiors.