The high security trial of 29 people suspected of involvement in the deadly March 2004 bombings of commuter trains in the Spanish capital, Madrid, will resume on Monday. A key defendant, the Egyptian Rabei Ousmane Sayed Ahmed will again appear in court after refusing to answer questions from the prosecution last Thursday - the opening day of the trial. He is charged with 191 murders, 1,824 attempted murders and with running a terrorist organisation. He denies the charges and has said he condemns the Madrid train bombings - the worst al-Qaeda inspired terrorist acts on European soil - which killed 191 people and wounded over 1,800.
Ahmed's lawyer asked for the trial to be interrupted last week so that his client could listen once again to phone taps made by Italian police in which Ahmed is allegedly heard saying the 11 March 2004 attacks "was all my idea, and took a lot of patience and preparation." In the phone taps, a voice investigators allege is Ahmed's is heard calling the Madrid bombers "martrys and my brothers."
One of the allleged chief plotters behind the attacks, Ahmed faces some 38,000 years in jail if convicted. He was arrested on 7 June, 2004 in Italy and was extradited to Spain. Police bugged one of the Milan apartments he lived in and his mobile. At another address he had lived at, a note with the words "11-03-04, martyr, explosive,' was found, according to investigators. During the pre-trial investigation, Ahmed, nicknamed "Mohammed the Egyptian," said he did not recognise the voice in the various recorded conversations as his.
Seven Arab key suspects - including Ahmed - each face a sentence of some 40,000 years jail if convicted. Under Spanish law, the maximum term any individual can serve is 40 years, however. Prosecutors have asked for sentences totalling over 270,000 years for the 29 suspects, many of whom are Moroccan.
More than 600 witnesses and 100 forensic experts have been called to give evidence at the trial, which is expected to last five-six months. A source at Spain's High Court described the trial - which has taken three years to prepare - as the most complicated case the country has seen.
The three-judge panel is led by Javier Gomez Bermudez, who also presided over a trial of 24 suspected al-Qaeda members in 2005. Close to 100,000 pages of evidence prepared by the state prosecutor details how the Islamist cell developed in Spain, allegedly financed the plot by selling hashish and ecstasy pills, and how they made contact with former miners in northern Spain to purchase dynamite for the attacks. Nine Spaniards are charged with supplying and delivering explosives to the cell. |
Spain's supreme court has overturned the convictions of four of the 21 people found guilty of involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people. The four men had been convicted of charges ranging from membership of a terrorist group to supplying explosives.