SPAIN: Complex Madrid train bombing of March 2004 case set to open this week; victims prepare to face 29 suspects.

The trial against 29 suspects accused in Europe's worst terrorist attack opens in Spain this week. The proceedings come nearly three years after the March 11, 2004 attacks in Madrid that ripped apart four commuter trains that killed 191 people. The trial of a group of Islamists and Spaniards accused of involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings is set to begin this week. The attack left 191 people dead and injured nearly 2000. After almost three years of investigation, the 29 accused and an army of lawyers and victims will pour into a high-security courtroom on Thursday (February 15) to hear how the attack was concieved, planned, financed and carried out. More than 600 witnesses and 100 forensic investigators have been called to give evidence in the trial, which will be broadcast live on television and the Internet. On March 11, 2004, ten bombs hidden in sports bags exploded on four packed commuter trains, one of them at Madrid's main Atocha station. Another was 500 metres away and the other two at stations on a line into the Spanish capital. The president of the Association for the March 11 victims, Pilar Manjon, whose 18-year old son was killed in the attacks, explained on Tuesday (February 13) how the victims and their families have received psychological support to prepare for a trial they are facing with "pain, anger, and helplessness." "With fear and hopelessness (that's how we face the trial). We are about to relive it all over, all we felt on March 11 is going to come up again. We are going to look at the alleged accused in the eye --we accept the presumption of innocence-- and we are going to try to understand why they ruined our lives when we were simply on our way to work or to school; because that's what we were doing that day, ourselves, our children, our husbands, our wives, our wounded," Manjon told reporters. The terrorists timed their attack to coincide with the morning rush hour; Isabel Casanova lost her 22-year old son that day. A nursing auxiliary, Isabel hasn't been able to work since the attack. She said that although there will never be a real closure for her, to see the offenders punished should bring some relief. "I do trust the Spanish Judiciary System, therefore I expect to see convicted those responsible. I expect a fair trial, justice, and to see the offenders serving the full sentence, all of it. As far as personal feelings go, I'm not going to get my son back, I'm not going to recuperate my son, but I want to see justice being made in his name, and in the name of the 191 victims and the 1500 wounded. That's what I expect, justice to be made in their names," said Isabel. The Madrid bombings were, to date, the most deadly al Qaeda-inspired attacks on European soil. They not only traumatised Spain, but also led to an abrupt change of government and the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq. "It's crucial to celebrate these trials. It's awful the freedom terrorists enjoy to commit these crimes. To me however it's very clear who the offenders are," Madrid resident, Mari Carmen Ramirez told Reuters on Tuesday. "Justice, that's what I expect," added Maria Teresa, a Madrid commuter. Twenty Arab men, mostly Moroccans, face allegations that include providing drugs to pay for explosives, helping suspects escape and preparing the bombs that blew apart four commuter trains like tin cans. Nine Spaniards are charged with supplying and delivering explosives to the Islamist cell. An Egyptian, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment by an Italian court last November for his role in the bombings. He was arrested in Milan three months after the blasts and has been extradited to stand trial in Madrid. 11other major suspects will not be on trial before the three-judge panel. Some of the main organisers died when seven suspects blew themselves up in an apartment block weeks after the bombings, another is believed to have been killed in Iraq and three more are still at large. During the hearings, expected to last more than five months, lawyers will provide evidence of how an Islamist cell grew up in Spain and was encouraged to carry out an attack to try to force the government to withdraw its troops from Iraq. After the hearings, the judges are expected to take until at least October to consider their verdicts and sentencing. The state prosecutor has requested sentences totalling 270,600 years for the seven main defendants, but under Spanish law the maximum term any individual can serve is 40 years.

ITN Source | February 14, 2007

Tags:. .psychological. .sentences. .exploded. .anger. .withdrawal