Greek leftists get 25 years each

The court had originally sentenced the three men and a woman to 1,174 years each, but later revised the jail terms.

The judge said they had played a secondary role in 42 bombings and 48 murder attempts since 1983 by the ELA, or People's Revolutionary Struggle.

The group's lawyers have asked the court to suspend the sentences.

They have been out on bail for the past few months.

Angeletos Kanas, 52, Costas Agapiou, 56, Irene Athanasaki, 50, and Christos Tsigaridas, 64, were convicted by the special anti-terrorism court on just over half the charges they faced.

They were not convicted of the more serious charges of actually orchestrating or carrying out any of the attacks, in which one policeman died, due to a lack of evidence.

Crackdown

A statute of limitations prevented them from being charged in connection with attacks more than 20 years old.

They also escaped sentences under Greece's anti-terrorism legislation because the court found that the ELA suspended operations in 1995 - six years before the law came into force.

The trial was held under tight security in Greece's largest high-security prison, Korrydallos outside Athens, by a special anti-terrorism tribunal without a jury.

It was part of a police crackdown on radical groups in the face of intense international pressure to improve security ahead of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. All the suspects except Tsigaridas, who is an architect, had denied any involvement with the group.

The ELA was formed in 1975, one year after the fall of Greece's military junta.

Like the much more deadly November 17 group, ELA was born out of opposition to the US-backed junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.

Further reading http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3733794.stm