Spain jails pensioner 18 years over letter bombs

A Spanish court on Tuesday sentenced a pensioner to 18 years in prison over letter bombs sent to Spain's prime minister and the US and Ukrainian embassies in 2022. (Reuters/File)

• Pompeyo Gonzalez Pascual — who opposed Western support for Ukraine following Russia’s February 2022 invasion — was found guilty of terrorism and manufacturing explosives
• A Ukrainian embassy staffer sustained light injuries while opening one of the packages

MADRID: A Spanish court on Tuesday sentenced a pensioner to 18 years in prison over letter bombs sent to Spain’s prime minister and the US and Ukrainian embassies in 2022.
Pompeyo Gonzalez Pascual — who opposed Western support for Ukraine following Russia’s February 2022 invasion — was found guilty of terrorism and manufacturing explosives, ruled Spain’s top criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional.
The 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.
A Ukrainian embassy staffer sustained light injuries while opening one of the packages. The other packages were intercepted by security staff.
The court said a 76-year-old Gonzalez Pascual had aimed to “cause 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.”
An expert who examined Gonzalez Pascual’s computer told the court they found evidence of “searches for how to prepare explosive devices” and of his visiting “media propaganda channels related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”
At 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.
Gonzalez 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’t in a position to destroy evidence or likely to reoffend and had no previous convictions.
At the time, the judge said there were “no indications” he had acted in conjunction with “any organized terror group.”
After the embassy attack, Ukraine’s ambassador to Spain, Serhii Pohoreltsev, pointed the finger at Russia and Kyiv ramped up security at its embassies around the world.