Madrid airport bombers given 1,000-year sentences

[May 21, 2010]  MADRID (AP) -- Spain's National Court has convicted three members of the Basque separatist group ETA of murder, attempted murder and participation in a terror attack and sentenced them to 1,040 years in jail each.

They were found responsible for a Dec. 30, 2006, explosion at Madrid's Barajas airport that destroyed a five-story parking garage, killing two Ecuadorean immigrants and wounding 41 other people. ETA later claimed responsibility for the attack, which marked the end of an cease-fire that the group had begun nine months earlier.

The verdict and sentence for Mattin Sarasola, Igor Portu and Mikel San Sebastian were released Friday.

ETA has killed more than 825 people since the late 1960s in its campaign for an independent Basque homeland.

[Associated Press]

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