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Amid a tide of anguish that left many in the courtroom weeping, six outlaw bikers convicted of murdering eight men were each sentenced to life in prison yesterday.The grief flowed from victim-impact statements read to the court before Mr. Justice Thomas Heeney sentenced former Bandidos members Wayne Kellestine, Michael Sandham, Dwight Mushey, Frank Mather, Marcelo Aravena and Brett Gardiner.

A day earlier, the six were convicted by a jury on 44 charges of first-degree murder and four counts of manslaughter.

Before being handed the automatic penalty of life, two of the killers turned to the 20-plus bereaved relatives of their eight victims and voiced remorse.

"I truly am sorry for what I've put you through," Mr. Aravena said.

"I know that nothing I can say will bring your loved ones back, but I did not know this was going to happen."

Mr. Gardiner simply said: "I apologize to the families."

In all, 25 victim-impact statements were filed, and six read out in the packed courtroom.

"This senseless, unbearable act took away the peace, comfort, security, hope and dreams not only from my family but from all the families," said Marilyn Di Florio, the mother of victim Frank Salerno.

"We will never understand this brutality that happened."

Because all six defendants were convicted on multiple counts of murder, they will have to serve at least 25 years behind bars before seeking parole.

All were also ordered to supply DNA samples to authorities. As well, they will be subject to lengthy or permanent bans on owning firearms if and when they eventually go free.

All the defendants and victims were full-patch members or associates of the Texas-based Bandidos motorcycle gang, which had two chapters in Canada at the time of the April 2006 murders - one in Toronto and one in Winnipeg.

Slain were Mr. Salerno, John Muscedere, George Jessome, George Kriarakis, Luis Raposo, Paul Sinopoli, Jamie Flanz and Michael Trotta, all from the Greater Toronto area. The six killers were mostly drawn from the Bandidos' probationary chapter in Winnipeg.

The jury's verdicts Thursday, following just 14 hours of deliberations, came 3½ years after the killings, and seven months after the trial began in a heavily secured 14th floor courtroom in downtown London.

Prosecutors successfully made the case that the murders stemmed from a power struggle between the two Canadian chapters, and that the rivalry exploded into violence when the parent Texas group ordered the Toronto Bandidos stripped of their membership.

Before sentencing the men for what he described as "horrific acts of violence," Judge Heeney acknowledged the bereaved relatives' "eloquent outpouring of grief, which says everything."

Her voice trembling, Tereasa Muscedere, Mr. Muscedere's 24-year-old daughter, was in tears as she told the court that losing her father had left her alone, frightened and confused.

"The six accused did not only take eight men," she said. "They have taken away a piece of my soul ... I will have a lifetime of suffering to do."

Mr. Muscedere, the Bandidos' Canadian president, was the second to die in the slaughter at Mr. Kellestine's farm and the first of three to be shot by Mr. Kellestine, who looked on with seeming indifference as Ms. Muscedere read her statement.

Next up was Vickie Kriarakis, mother of George Kriarakis, who died reciting the Lord's Prayer, the trial earlier heard. Shot seven times and grievously wounded in the abdomen before finally being taken out to his car and executed, Mr. Kriarakis probably suffered more than any of the other victims.

On the day he died, "my heart stopped, my joy was replaced by utter dismay," his mother told the court. "He was the son that any mother would want to have ... As I stand in front of you, all hope is gone."

The address by Ms. Di Florio, Mr. Salerno's mother, was particularly eloquent.

"During the evidence of the wiretap conversations I continually heard the expressions love, loyalty and respect, apparently a mantra of the Bandidos club," she said.

"Where was the love, loyalty and respect on the night of April 8 when our loved ones were ambushed and murdered by their so-called brothers? How two-faced, disloyal and full of deceit, how cowardly those killers were. They shattered our lives forever."

What impact, if any, the statements made on the six killers was hard to gauge, although Mr. Aravena's apology seemed sincere.

The three shooters in the massacre - Mr. Sandham, Mr. Mushey and Mr. Kellestine - said nothing.

Then, for the last time the six were led from the courtroom in handcuffs and shackled and shunted down to the holding cells, en route to a federal penitentiary.