Military

DATE=10/30/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=SPAIN / BOMB (L-O)

NUMBER=2-268628

BYLINE=GIL CARBAJAL

DATELINE=MADRID

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: In Spain's capital, Madrid, a carbomb killed a Supreme Court judge, his driver, and a bodyguard. Gil Carbajal reports from Madrid that authorities blame the Basque pro-independence group, ETA.

TEXT: It was a routine morning in the affluent Arturo Soria residential district in northeast Madrid. Shops were opening. People were having breakfast in neighborhood cafes before heading for work. Children were getting settled in two local schools when a carbomb with an estimated 30-kilograms of explosives and shrapnel was detonated by remote control.

It exploded as the car in which the 69-year-old supreme court judge, Jose Francisco Querol Lombardero, was passing by. The blast hurled his vehicle over a bus. Judge Querol, his driver and his bodyguard were killed instantly and their bodies burned within the flaming car.

The bus driver and an 11-year-old girl who was walking nearby are in critical condition. More than 35-people were injured, many of them by flying glass.

There could have been more victims, but the bus served as shield for people waiting at a bus stop across the street from the bombing. Scores of automobiles were damaged or destroyed and about 500 residences were damaged in surrounding apartment buildings.

Authorities were quick to blame the Basque pro-independence terrorist group, ETA, which admitted to three carbomb attacks in the city since it called off a 14-month truce in December.

The attack took place the same morning a Madrid superior court sentenced former ETA leader Francisco Múgica Garmendia, to 30-years in prison for ordering the 1989 assassination of prosecutor Carmen Tagle.

The first day the former ETA leader appeared in court, he blamed Spanish judges for the situation in the Basque country. He said as far as ETA was concerned the judges would suffer the same fate as the assassinated prosecutor. (SIGNED)

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