Palestinian bombers convicted

A Palestinian court has sentenced two Hamas militants to fifteen years in prison with hard labour for making bombs used in two suicide bomb attacks that killed more than twenty people in Jerusalem last summer.

The two men -- Jasser Samara and Nasim Abu Rous -- were sentenced behind closed doors after a three-hour trial in Jericho.

They were arrested last week after Palestinian security forces raided a Hamas bomb factory in the West Bank town of Nablus.

An Israeli government spokesman reacted coolly to the sentencing; he said the Palestinian authority has tended to release people convicted of violent crimes soon after their trials.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service