ETA members sentenced to 1,040 years for 2006 car bombing

May 21, 2010, 11:12 GMT

Madrid - Spain's National Court has sentenced three members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA to 1,040 years in prison each for a car bombing that killed two people at a Madrid airport car park in December 2006, the court announced Friday.

The attack, which killed two Ecuadorian immigrants and injured more than 40 other people, led to the collapse of an incipient peace process between the Spanish government and ETA.

Mattin Sarasola, Mikel San Sebastian and Igor Portu were also ordered to pay a total of 1.2 million euros (1.5 million dollars) in damages to the families of the two Ecuadorians.

Prosecutors had requested prison sentences of 1,120 years.

The sentences followed the arrests of ETA's suspected military leader, his alleged second-in-charge and a third ETA activist as they were planning new attacks in a flat in Bayonne, southern France, on Thursday.

ETA has killed more than 820 people in its campaign for an independent Basque country since 1968. The group is listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States.