San Sebastian, Spain - Suspected Basque separatists Wednesday shot dead an entrepreneur in Azpeitia near San Sebastian in Spain's Basque region, police said.

Ignacio Uria Mendizabal, 71, was one of the heads of a company participating in the construction of a high-speed rail network which had come under threat from the militant Basque separatist group ETA.

Two people shot Uria Mendizabal in the head and chest as he was about to leave his car in the car park of a restaurant where he came daily to play cards.

Health workers failed to revive the victim who died of his injuries.

The attackers fled by car. It was thought possible that they used a vehicle robbed a few hours earlier from its driver who was found at 25 kilometres from Azpeitia with his hands tied. The car was later burned and abandoned, according to radio reports.

ETA had carried out several minor attacks against companies participating in the construction of the rail network, which is to link the Basque cities of Bilbao, San Sebastian and Vitoria with each other, Madrid and France by 2013.

ETA sees the rail project as representing the interests of the Basque region's governing Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which it regards as too moderate in promoting the Basque nationalist cause.

Uria Mendizabal was the fourth person allegedly killed this year by ETA, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States.

ETA has killed a total of more than 820 people in its four-decade campaign for a sovereign Basque state.

The killing of Uria Mendizabal came two weeks after the capture of Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu alias Txeroki, ETA's suspected military leader, in France. Spanish police had expected ETA to retaliate for the arrest.

Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega expressed the government's "total and absolute rejection" of the killing, while the governing Socialist Party vowed that "terrorist madness will not succeed" in influencing "democrats."

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero suspended meetings which he had been due to attend Thursday in the Basque region. Socialist sources said he might now visit the region to show his disapproval of the killing of Uria Mendizabal. (dpa)