JORGE SAINZ and ARON HELLER, Associated Press  MADRID -- They
were burned at the stake, forced to convert or chased into
exile. Now Spain is moving to right a half-millennium old
"historic mistake" against its onetime flourishing Sephardic
Jewish community: the European Union country is on the verge of
offering citizenship to descendants of victims estimated to
number in the millions.  The Spanish conservative government
plans to make amends with a law expected to be passed within
weeks or months in Parliament that offers citizenship to the
descendants of legions of Jews forced to flee in 1492. Asked
whether the new law amounted to an apology, Spanish Justice
Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon replied: "Without a doubt."
"What the law will do, five centuries later, is make amends for
a terrible historic mistake, one of the worst that Spaniards
ever made," Ruiz-Gallardon told The Associated Press in an
interview.  Descendants of Sephardic Jews, he said, will be
considered "children of Spain."  The term "Sephardi