A hunter who murdered two Spanish wildlife rangers has been sentenced to 45 years in jail and ordered to pay the men’s families more than €1m.

Xavier Ribes Villas and David Iglesias Díez, who worked as agents rurals in Lleida, western Catalonia, were on a routine patrol on 21 January 2017 when they came across a group of hunters close to the small village of Aspa.

One of the hunters, Ismael Rodríguez, responded to the rangers’ arrival by raising his unlicensed shotgun and shooting Ribes and Iglesias at close range. He then reloaded and shot them again. Both men died at the scene. Ribes was 43 and Iglesias 39. Each left behind a wife and a child.

Ismael Rodríguez said he ‘got nervous’ but did not know why he shot the rangers. Photograph: Handout

Rodríguez waited almost an hour before ringing the emergency services. When he finally did so, he told the operator: “They came and I got nervous and I don’t know why I reacted the way I did.”

The murders shocked rangers around Spain and led to calls for officers to be allowed to carry pistols for protection.

Late last month Rodríguez was found guilty of premeditated murder after a jury rejected suggestions he had not been responsible for his actions.

On Monday a court in Lleida ordered Rodríguez be jailed for 22 years for each murder and an additional year for illegal firearms possession. He was also told to pay a total of €1,077,473,28 to the families of Ribes and Iglesias.

The Spanish Association of Forest and Environmental Agents, which has been campaigning for rangers to be properly trained and armed, says successive governments have failed to take the necessary steps to ensure wildlife officers can protect themselves.

“Two murders and more than 30 serious attacks in a little over two years don’t seem to be enough to get someone to sit down and listen to the proposals of a group of people who have to deal with environmental crimes on a daily basis, armed with nothing but a notebook and a pen,” the association said in a recent statement.