WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph got a life sentence in prison on Monday for the 1996 attack that killed one woman and injured more than 100 people.

    Rudolph, 38, was also sentenced for the 1997 bombings of an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub in the Georgia city, in which a total of 11 people were wounded.

Convicted serial bomber Eric Rudolph (C) is led from the Cherokee County jail in Murphy, North Carolina in this June 2, 2003 file picture. (Reuters)

    At a hearing in a federal court in Atlanta, Rudolph said he had not intended to harm bystanders but only embarrass the U.S. government when he planted a powerful nail bomb in Centennial Olympic Park on July 27, 1996, according to reports from Atlanta.

    Rudolph's apology came after he listened to victims of the Atlanta bombings speak of the impact of his crimes.

    "Your twisted hatred extinguished a bright innocent flame," said John Hawthorne, whose wife, Alice, was killed in the Olympic bombing. "You are a very small man. Little person, big bomb, but you are still a small man."

    Hawthorne noted that Monday would have been the couple's 18th wedding anniversary.

    "I would do anything to take back that night. To these victims, I apologize," Rudolph told a court packed with those wounded in the Olympic bombing and two other blasts at an abortion clinic and a gay club in the Atlanta area.

    Rudolph received two life sentences last month for killing a police officer and seriously wounding a nurse when he bombed an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama in 1998.

    Rudolph hid for years in the mountains of North Carolina but was arrested while scavenging for food in a dumpster in May 2003. He subsequently revealed the location of 113 kilograms of dynamite he had hidden in the area. Enditem