MADRID .- A Spanish court on Tuesday sentenced a man to 18 years in prison for sending six explosive packages to the Spanish prime minister and other government, military and diplomatic targets, including the U.S. and Ukrainian embassies.
Pompeyo González Pascual, 76, was sentenced to 10 years for committing acts of terrorism, and eight for the manufacture and use of illegal explosives for terrorist purposes.
The judges considered that the accused acted with “the purpose of causing a great commotion in Spanish society that would exert pressure on the governments of Spain and the United States of America and other entities based in Spanish territory to stop providing support to Ukraine in the war waged by this State against Russia.”
González Pascual, a resident of the town of Miranda de Ebro in north-central Spain, was arrested in January 2023 for sending the packages to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the US and Ukrainian embassies in Madrid in 2022.
An employee of the Ukrainian embassy was slightly injured while handling one of the packages.
The six explosive packages were sent in November and December 2022, and the intervention of bomb disposal experts was required. One of them was destroyed after being sent by regular mail to Sánchez.
Several packages with similar characteristics were sent to the Spanish defense minister, to a European Union satellite center located at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base outside Madrid, and to a weapons factory in northeastern Spain that makes grenades for shipment to Ukraine.
A package was intercepted at the US embassy check-in point and destroyed by a bomb squad after cordoning off a large area in the centre of the Spanish capital.
