ATHENS, Oct 6 (AFP) A Greek court Wednesday convicted four members of the country's oldest, leftist radical group of complicity in a wave of attacks, and cleared a fifth person, the presiding judge announced.

Judge Elissavet Brilli said the four who were convicted were guilty of having had a secondary role in 48 assassination attempts through more than 40 separate bomb attacks carried out by the People's Revolutionary Struggle (ELA) since 1983. One policeman was killed in the attacks.

But due to lack of evidence, the court cleared them of more serious charges of having actually orchestrated or carried out the attacks. The defendants also escaped sentences under Greece's draconian anti-terrorism legislation because the court found that ELA suspended operations in 1995 -- six years before anti-terror law came in force.

The four convicted radicals are Christos Tsigaridas, 64, Angeletos Kanas, Irini Athanassaki, 50, and 57-year-old Costas Agapiou. They all face up to 25 years in jail. Sentences could be announced later in the day.

A fifth suspect, Michalis Kassimis, brother of ELA's founder Christos Kassimis who was slain by police in 1977, was cleared of all charges.

Marxist ELA was founded one year after the fall of Greece's US-backed military dictatorship in 1975. It has claimed responsibility for two assassinations and 250 bomb attacks on police stations, US institutions, banks and public buildings.

The group's eight-month trial is Greece's second major courtroom drama involving radical groups after members of the far deadlier November 17 were convicted in December 2003.

The trial could mark the symbolic end of Greek authorities' efforts to crack down on homegrown radical organisations. Greece's active radical scene formed during the country's US-backed 1967-1974 military junta and sustained action under different labels after the re-establishment of democracy.

The ELA defendants were caught in early 2003 afe Athens 2004 Olympic Games. None of the two groups' members had ever been arrested before.

ELA attacks carried out before 1983, including a murder, were not tried because of a 20-year statute of limitations.

Lawyers for Athanassaki, a woman, Agapiou and Tsigaridas said their clients would appeal the decision.

"It's a totally mistaken and unjust decision... my client was the victim of a politically-motivated police investigation," Spyros Fitrakis, the attorney representing Agapiou, told the three-strong special court convening in Greece's largest high-security prison of Korrydallos outside Athens.