A Spanish court Wednesday delivered an unexpectedly mixed verdict in the trial of 28 defendants charged in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, convicting three of mass murder but delivering lesser convictions against the others.
The three-judge panel delivered the verdict as most of the defendants watched from wooden benches in a glass-enclosed area of the courtroom.
Of the 28 men on trial, eight had been considered prime defendants, alleged to be either the bombers, ideologues, or "necessary cooperators" in the fatal plot. Each of the eight faced 191 charges of mass murder and more than 1,800 charges of attempted murder.
But there were gasps in the courtroom as the judges convicted only three of the eight prime defendants of the gravest charge -- mass murder. The judges convicted four others on lesser charges and acquitted one prime defendant of all charges.
The number of acquittals is likely to disappoint survivors of the attacks and relatives of the victims, who said the trial had dredged up bad memories of the bombings that they could not now put to rest. As they left court, some victims and families said they felt deprived of justice. Watch how victims of the bombings are coping 
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CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman contributed to this report