MADRID
\nA Spanish court on Tuesday sentenced a pensioner to 18 years in prison over letter bombs sent to Spain\u2019s prime minister and the US and Ukrainian embassies in 2022.
\nPompeyo Gonzalez Pascual \u2014 who opposed Western support for Ukraine following Russia\u2019s February 2022 invasion \u2014 was found guilty of terrorism and manufacturing explosives, ruled Spain\u2019s top criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional.
\nThe homemade devices were sent to targets including Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Defense Minister Margarita Robles, the US and Ukrainian embassies, a Spanish arms firm that makes grenades donated to Ukraine and a major Spanish military base.
\nA Ukrainian embassy staffer sustained light injuries while opening one of the packages. The other packages were intercepted by security staff.
\nThe court said a 76-year-old Gonzalez Pascual had aimed to \u201ccause a profound upheaval in Spanish society that would exert pressure so the governments of Spain and the United States and other entities based in Spanish territory would stop supporting Ukraine.\u201d
\nAn expert who examined Gonzalez Pascual\u2019s computer told the court they found evidence of \u201csearches for how to prepare explosive devices\u201d and of his visiting \u201cmedia propaganda channels related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.\u201d
\nAt his home, investigators found a workshop containing soldering equipment, tools, metal parts and screws compatible with the letter bombs sent as wells as indications of preparatory work to construct more devices.
\nGonzalez Pascual was arrested in January 2023 and put in pre-trial detention but a judge granted him conditional release earlier this year on grounds he wasn\u2019t in a position to destroy evidence or likely to reoffend and had no previous convictions.
\nAt the time, the judge said there were \u201cno indications\u201d he had acted in conjunction with \u201cany organized terror group.\u201d
\nAfter the embassy attack, Ukraine\u2019s ambassador to Spain, Serhii Pohoreltsev, pointed the finger at Russia and Kyiv ramped up security at its embassies around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MADRID A Spanish court on Tuesday sentenced a pensioner to 18 years in prison over letter bombs sent to Spain\u2019s prime minister and the US and Ukrainian embassies in 2022. Pompeyo Gonzalez Pascual \u2014 who opposed Western support for Ukraine following Russia\u2019s February 2022 invasion \u2014 was found guilty of terrorism and manufacturing explosives, ruled …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":67740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67745,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67730\/revisions\/67745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}