A court in Spain has convicted three members of the Basque separatist group ETA of a 2006 bombing at a Madrid airport that killed two people and destroyed a parking garage.
The court Friday found Mattin Sarasola, Igor Portu and Mikel San Sebastian guilty of murder, attempted murder and terrorist damage. Each was sentenced to 1,040 years in prison. The sentences are symbolic of the gravity of their crime, because the maximum prison sentence that anyone can serve for terrorism in Spain is 40 years.
The three also were ordered to pay about $1.5 million in compensation to the families of the two victims.
ETA claimed responsibility for the bombing at Madrid's Barajas airport in December of 2006. The explosion of the bomb, planted in a van parked in the airport garage, killed two Ecuadorian immigrants.
ETA is blamed for 830 deaths during its four-decade push for an independent Basque state in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. The European Union and the United States consider the group to be a terrorist organization.
Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.