VARIOUS: Verdicts are given in the Madrid bombing court case

Emotions are mixed at the verdicts handed down by a Spanish judge in the Madrid bombing court case, as under tight security some of convicted men are taken to prison. A Spanish Civil guard van drove back to the Soto del Real high security prison on Wednesday (October 31) carrying some of the men convicted in the Madrid bombings bombings after a judge read out the court's verdict. Earlier on Wednesday, a Spanish court found 21 people guilty of involvement in the train bombings in Madrid on March 11, 2004 but cleared three men of masterminding Europe's deadliest Islamist attack, which killed 191 people. Victims were shocked by the sentences, which in many cases were much lower than the state attorney had requested and left them without any clearer idea of who had masterminded the attack that ripped apart four commuter trains. Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez sentenced three men -- two Moroccans and a Spaniard who provided the bombers with explosives -- to as many as 42,924 years in prison but nobody else got more than 23 years. Seven people were acquitted. Under Spanish law nobody can serve more than 40 years in jail. The biggest surprise was that two men originally accused of planning the attack were convicted only of belonging to a terrorist group, not of the Madrid killings. A third suspected mastermind Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed or "Mohamed the Egyptian" was cleared of all charges. He is already in jail in Italy for belonging to a terrorist group. His lawyer Endika Zulueta said that he was condemned by society but the Spanish judicial system was correct in pronouncing him innocent. "He was condemned by society and by the media but a judge decided that he is innocent - that's not only good news for myself as his lawyer, but also for Spanish society as a whole. From that point of view, I think we should all congratulate ourselves." Zulueta said outside the court. Also speaking to journalists outside the court after the verdicts had been handed down, Pilar Manjon the president of the victims association, and whose son died in the attack, said the group would be appealing against the sentences. "We'd like to announce that the association I represent will appeal against the sentence. We'll go to the Supreme Court after our lawyers review the sentence in full detail." Manjon said. Commuters at Atocha station watched the courts verdicts live on televisions in the train stations cafes. "It's clear that terrorism is not being handled with an iron fist here. Lots of demonstrations but nothing serious - we can all see that they are guilty and that they are still related to all that network," said one Madrid commuter. Ten bombs packed into sports bags and detonated by mobile phones tore through the trains on March 11, 2004, strewing the tracks with bodies and injuring more than 1,800 people. Three weeks later, seven men including two suspected ringleaders of the train bombings blew themselves up in a suburban apartment after police closed in on them. The explosives were the same as were used in the March 11 attack. They may have taken with them the main evidence of who was behind the attack, which the magistrate who investigated the bombings said was inspired by, but not directed by, al Qaeda. The court laid most of the charges at the feet of the three men sentenced to thousands of years in prison. Jamal Zougam was found guilty of belonging to a jihadist terrorist cell and convicted of terrorist murder. He was seen by three witnesses on the trains that blew up. Fellow Moroccan Othman el Gnaoui was convicted of the same charges and found guilty of helping to get explosives to a house near Madrid where the bombs were prepared. Spaniard Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras was found guilty of providing the explosives in the knowledge they could be used for a terrorist attack. As the sentences were handed out, the three men sat silently behind bullet-proof glass staring at the judge or the floor. As he summed up the trial, Judge Gomez Bermudez again said there was no proof Basque separatist rebels ETA had anything to do with the train bombs, despite some media and victims' support groups still insisting there must be some link to them. The conservative government in power in March 2004 at first pinned the attack on ETA but as more evidence piled up to show it was the work of an Islamist cell, Spain turned against its leaders and voted them out of power three days later. The judge also announced compensation ranging from 30,000 euros (43,340 U.S. dollars) to 1.5 million euros for victims. All the suspects pleaded innocent and those found guilty are expected to appeal against their sentences. The blasts hit three days before the last elections, which the then Popular Party government had looked set to win, despite having led the country into the highly unpopular war in Iraq. But the conservative government's insistence that Basque separatists planted the bombs backfired when evidence piled up to show they were the work of radical Islamists. Days later, voters turned out en masse and brought in the Socialists, who quickly pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq.

ITN Source | November 1, 2007

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