SPAIN: Security tigthens as Spanish judge prepares to deliver verdict on March 11 train bombing trial

Police steps up security outside the court building where a Spanish judge will announce verdicts and sentences for the men accused of planning, carrying out or assisting in the March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 and injured almost 2000. Security tightened on Wednesday (October 31) outside the building where a Spanish court was to deliver verdicts on 28 people accused of playing a role in the 2004 Madrid train bombings. Journalists and satellite trucks also camped out at the court's exterior, on a mission to follow the ending of a politically charged trial into Europe's deadliest al Qaeda inspired attack. Ten bombs ripped through four commuter trains early on March 11, 2004. The bombings killed 191 people and injured 1,800 when mobile phones set off homemade bombs packed into sports bags. The bombings also reshaped Spanish politics as voters spurned a conservative government that at first blamed the blasts on Basque separatists ETA. Twenty-nine people, mostly Moroccans and Spaniards, have been tried for crimes ranging from masterminding the attack to stealing dynamite from a mine in northern Spain. One has since been cleared. In the four and a half month trial, the court heard how petty criminals met in fast food restaurants to plot the bombings. Commuters using Atocha station on Wednesday said justice should be done. "Everyone should be held accountable for their actions. You know they are my countrymen -I'm also Moroccan, but I'm on the Justice side and I expect them to be fair," a Moroccan resident of Madrid said. She travelled on a early train on the day of the attacks that day, so she escaped the tragedy but not severe psychological stress after the attacks, she told Reuters. "They should be punished for the massacre they committed -let's not have them out in the streets mocking us citizens. They do not deserve anything good," Dominican Republic resident of Madrid Lucrecio said. Spanish citizen Rosa said the hardest thing was to travel on those train the day after the blasts. "I expect Justice to be made and, since death penalty is not legal in Spain, at least I hope they die in jail," she said. After a four month break to consider the evidence, Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez will call the court to sit at about 11 a.m. (1000 GMT) and read a summary of the trial. Then he will announce which suspects have been found guilty or innocent and read out sentences. The eight main suspects face multiple sentences that could total 39,000 years for each, although such figures are academic because under Spanish law nobody can stay in prison for more than 40 years. All suspects have pleaded innocent and most are expected to appeal against their sentences. The blasts hit three days before the last elections, which the governing centre-right Popular Party had looked set to win. The then government's insistence that Basque separatist movement ETA planted the bombs backfired when evidence piled up to show they were the work of radical Islamists and were linked to Spain's backing of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Days later, Spaniards voted the Socialists into power. They quickly pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq.

ITN Source | October 31, 2007

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