ETA bombers jailed for 1,000 years

Three members of Basque separatist group Eta were jailed for 1,000 years each today for a bombing that killed two people at Madrid airport.

Spain frequently hands down lengthy sentences in terrorism cases although they are mostly symbolic because the maximum jail sentence a person can serve for a terrorism conviction is 40 years.

The National Court found the three men guilty of murder, attempted murder and taking part in a terror attack in connection with the December 30, 2006 explosion at Barajas airport. The blast destroyed a five-storey car park, killing two Ecuadorean immigrants and wounding 41 other people.

Eta later claimed responsibility for the attack, which marked the end of the cease-fire that the group had begun nine months earlier.

Convicted were Mattin Sarasola, Igor Portu and Mikel San Sebastian. The three were ordered to pay 1.2 million euros in compensation to the families of the two Ecuadoreans.

Eta is seeking an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and south-western France. The group has killed more than 825 people since the late 1960s.

It declared a cease-fire in March 2006 but reverted to violence in a matter of months after peace talks with Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government went nowhere. Spanish and French police have arrested dozens of suspected Eta members in both countries since the end of the cease-fire.

Today's verdict came a day after French and Spanish police arrested Eta's suspected leader and his second in command.

Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said leader Mikel Kabikoitz Carrera Sarobe was behind major Eta bombings last summer in Spain, one of which killed two policemen on Majorca.