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A court in the Basque Country dropped charges against the Basque president, two members of Spain''s ruling Socialist party and five members of the outlawed Basque leftist party Batasuna on Monday.

Court spokeswoman Pilar Aguirrebengoa says the court ruled that the two groups taking the case did not constitute a legitimate prosecution.

Roberto Saiz, an investigating magistrate at the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque country, ordered the trial against Basque president Juan Jose Ibarretxe and the two Socialists, Patxi Lopez and Rodolfo Ares, over a meeting with Batasuna leaders Otegi, Barrena, Petrikorena, Dañobeitia and Etxeberria because the Spanish Supreme Court declared Batasuna illegal in 2003 on grounds it is part of the armed Basque group ETA.

The meetings were held after ETA declared a cease-fire in March 2006, although the group reverted to violence in December after peace talks with the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero went nowhere.

Lopez and Ares, both senior members of the Basque branch of Zapatero''s party, met with Batasuna leaders publicly in July 2006 when optimism over the ETA cease-fire was high. Ibarretxe did so in April 2006 and January 2007.

Under Spanish law, private parties can ask courts to bring criminal charges and that is what happened in this case. Two activist groups in the Basque region that opposed Zapatero''s peace talks with ETA, the Ermua Forum and Dignity and Justice, asked the Basque region''s highest court to go after Ibarretxe, Lopez and Ares for meeting with Batasuna leader Arnaldo Otegi and others.

Prosecutors had said they saw no evidence of a crime, and that the court could not act just at the request of private parties. But Saiz rejected this argument, saying he could order a trial even though prosecutors representing the state were opposed.

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