MADRID, Spain — A car bomb exploded in a busy residential area during rush hour Monday, killing a Supreme Court judge, his bodyguard and driver in the deadliest attack blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA since it ended a 14-month cease-fire last December.
Another 35 people were injured in the Madrid bombing, which tore holes in cars, shattered windows for blocks and left a haze of white smoke and burning debris scattered through the neighborhood.
The judge, 69-year-old Jose Francisco Querol, worked for a military section of the court. He held the rank of general and was due to retire next month, said the General Council of the Judiciary, a judicial oversight body. The two others killed were tentatively identified as driver Armando Medina Sanchez and Jesus Escudero Garcia, a member of the national police force.
Although no group claimed responsibility for the blast, Spanish politicians and news media immediately blamed ETA. "This looks every bit like an ETA attack," Interior Ministry spokesman Fernando Delgado said.
The attack came at 9:15 a.m. as people were going to work and children to schools in the Arturo Soria area of northeastern Madrid.
As the judge drove past an intersection, another car parked at the spot and rigged with a bomb was detonated by remote control, police said. Querol lived in the area, and his wife and daughter heard the blast from their home.
A city bus waiting to turn into the intersection was severely damaged, its front section gutted by flames and windows blown out. The driver suffered serious injuries, said emergency medical services spokesman Emilio Benito. There were few passengers aboard, and none was seriously injured, he said.
The explosion left smoldering cars and broken glass littering the street. It filled the air with thick, white smoke from burning garbage from six large trash bins on the corner where the bomb went off.
It shattered windows in apartment buildings in a radius of three blocks and even knocked tiles off bathroom walls. Afterward, stunned residents and pedestrians cried, hugged each other and held hands.
The explosion took place some 50 yards from a school. There were no immediate reports of children being injured.
Police cordoned off the area for fear that another bomb may have been planted.
ETA has frequently used car-bombs as part of its 32-year-old campaign for an independent Basque homeland in an area straddling northern Spain and southwest France.
The group has been blamed for some 800 killings since 1968, including 16 since it ended a 14-month cease-fire last December. ETA's last attributed attack was Oct. 22, when a prison officer was killed by a bomb attached to his car in the Basque city of Vitoria.
The death toll of Monday's blast was the highest of any of the attacks since the cease-fire ended. Twice — on February 22 and again on Aug. 20 — two people died in car bombings blamed on ETA.
There was no word from ETA after Monday's attack. The group usually takes weeks to claim responsibility, and often does so in communiques sent to a pro-independence Basque newspaper.
Organizations opposed to ETA violence called for peaceful demonstrations later Monday in Madrid and the Basque cities of Vitoria, Bilbao and San Sebastian. One group, the Movement Against Intolerance, said similar protest gatherings would be held Tuesday in other cities, including Barcelona.
Previous demonstrations following deadly ETA attacks have drawn tens of thousands of Spaniards eager to express their opposition to the Basque violence.