MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- A Spanish judge Friday suspended two leftist Basque political parties for their links to armed Basque separatist group ETA, barring their candidates from parliamentary elections next month, according to court documents seen by CNN.
Judge Baltasar Garzon ordered a three-year suspension against Basque Nationalist Action, known as ANV, and the Communist Party of the Basque Lands, known as PCTV, as part of a broader effort by authorities to crack down on ETA and its numerous sources of support.
The suspension by Garzon, at the National Court in Madrid, came just hours after a bomb which authorities blamed on ETA damaged a local courthouse in the northern Basque town of Bergara, where ANV is part of the local government.
ETA, listed as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, is blamed for more than 800 deaths and thousands of injuries during the past four decades in its fight for an independent Basque homeland.
ETA's unilateral "permanent" cease-fire announced in March 2006 raised hopes for a lasting peace, but in December 2006, an ETA bomb at Madrid's airport killed two men and destroyed a parking garage. The government said that effectively ended any peace process.
Since then -- and especially since ETA officially declared last June that its cease-fire was over -- authorities have moved to cut off support for ETA.
Police in Spain and France have arrested dozens of suspected ETA operatives, and a court last December convicted 47 people who either belonged to or collaborated with ETA through a series of shadowy organizations.
The crackdown on ETA's reputed political wings has been another key front. The leftist Batasuna party already was outlawed a few years ago, and some observers saw the now-suspended ANV and PCTV as successors to Batasuna's work. ANV has dozens of elected officials in the Basque region.
Garzon Friday issued a 264-page order suspending ANV for three years, including a ban on its political activity, the closure of its party offices and removing any Web sites associated with ANV. He issued a 27-page ruling against PCTV, listing similar measures.
Just this week, Garzon jailed two remaining Batasuna leaders who had remained free while many of their Batasuna colleagues were already in jail on charges of aiding ETA's violence.
ETA has been a continuing flashpoint between Spain's two main parties. The opposition conservative Popular Party has long insisted that the ruling Socialists have been too soft on ETA and have secretly negotiated with ETA, even after ETA's Madrid airport bomb, a charge the government denies. E-mail to a friend 
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