A powerful car bomb rocked a residential area of Madrid yesterday morning, killing three people and injuring another 66, many of them seriously.
The target of the terrorist attack - almost certainly the work of the Basque terrorist group, ETA - was Judge Jose Francisco Querol (69), a supreme court judge, his police bodyguard, who had only arrived in Madrid from Andalucia on a temporary posting, and his official driver.
The three men died instantly when the bomb destroyed their car, a passing bus and three nearby apartments and badly damaged more than 100 other apartments and 60 cars in the affluent Arturo Soria district.
It seems almost miraculous that the death toll was not higher. The Madrid Transport bus caught the force of the blast, sheltering those waiting at the bus stop. The driver was critically injured and is not expected to live.
An 11-year-old girl, travelling on the bus with her father, received serious leg injuries, although doctors say her life is not in immediate danger. Another 35 people were admitted to hospital, two of them in serious condition.
Emergency services established a tented field hospital at the scene of the explosion to treat the less seriously injured, many of whom were residents of nearby apartments, shops and offices cut by flying glass.
A special office has been set up in the area to advise and assist people who have been forced to leave their homes.
Judge Querol, a naval officer who held the rank of general, had a military career running parallel with his judicial career. He had been a member of Sala V of the Supreme Court, which tries military offences, since 1992 and was due to retire in a month, when he would have reached the age of 70. He is the second senior judge to be killed in a terrorist attack this month.
The killings of Judge Querol, his driver, Mr Armando Medina Sanchez, and his bodyguard, Mr Jesus Escudero Garcia, bring the number of people killed by ETA to 19 since it called off its 14month ceasefire last January. Four of the attacks have been in Madrid.
Anti-terrorist experts, who were among the first on the scene of the blast, believe that between 20kg and 30kg of explosives were used in the attack. Mr Querol had just got into his Renault Megane car, which had slowed down at traffic lights, when the terrorists detonated the bomb packed into a car stolen in Madrid last August.
Police have confirmed that an alleged ETA terrorist had been spotted in the area less than two weeks ago. They were tipped off by a garage attendant who recognised him from posters and they were able to confirm the identification from security cameras.
The three coffins were taken to the supreme court buildings to lie in state overnight until the funeral services.
Politicians of all factions wasted no time in condemning the latest terrorist attacks, and demonstrations have been planned in many towns across the country.
King Juan Carlos made an unusually outspoken condemnation of the murders. "ETA has carried out a horrible crime in Madrid. Sooner or later they will pay for their crimes," he said in Madrid.
The latest killing comes on the day that Francisco Garmendia Mugica, alias "Paquito", a veteran ETA leader, received a 30year prison sentence for his part in the murder of another Spanish judge, Carmen Tagle, in 1989.
Mugica was extradited to Spain last year after serving a jail sentence in France, and was accused of ordering Ms Tagle's murder and providing information to the terrorists.
Ten days ago, during his trial in Madrid, he warned that any member of the high court was an ETA target. "All judges are Carmen Tagles to us," he threatened.