MADRID - A bank robber known as "The Loner" who became Spain's most wanted criminal has been jailed for 47 years for shooting dead two policemen, a court said on Tuesday.

Jaime Gimenez Arbe was accused of carrying out more than 30 bank robberies on his own and avoided arrest by the Spanish police for some 13 years. Portuguese police caught him last year.

During the trial in Navarra in northern Spain, Gimenez Arbe admitted robbing banks but blamed a Corsican armed gang for the June 2004 murder of the traffic officers aged 31 and 29.

The court rejected his account and found him guilty of two murders, one attempted murder and of illegally possessing arms.

It said Gimenez Arbe fired 21 rounds at the policemen with an M3 submachinegun after they had stopped his car. The court ordered him to pay his victims' families compensation of 238,000 euros .

Gimenez Arbe is now awaiting trial for the death of another police officer and more than 30 bank robberies.

http://ph.news.yahoo.com

(Reporting by Teresa Larraz; Writing by Sarah Morris, edited by Richard Meares)