Mixed verdicts in Madrid terror trial

One alleged mastermind acquitted; in all, 21 of 28 suspects found guilty
The Associated Press
updated 9:09 a.m. ET Oct. 31, 2007

MADRID, Spain - An Egyptian who allegedly bragged that he masterminded the 2004 Madrid terror bombings that killed 191 people was acquitted of all charges Wednesday by a Spanish court. Three other lead defendants were convicted of murder, culminating a divisive trial over Europe’s worst Islamic militant attack.
Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez read out the verdicts into the March 11 attacks in a hushed courtroom, with heavy security, including bomb-sniffing dogs and police helicopters, outside.
The backpack bomb attacks killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800.

The three convicted lead suspects were handed sentences that stretched into the tens of thousands of years. They include Jamal Zougam, a Moroccan convicted of placing at least one bomb on one of the trains; Emilio Suarez Trashorras, a Spaniard who is a former miner found guilty of supplying the explosives used in the attacks; and Osman Gnaoui, a Moroccan accused of being a right-hand man of the plot’s operational chief.

But Rabei Osman, an Egyptian accused of helping orchestrate the attacks, was acquitted. Osman, who is in jail in Italy, had allegedly bragged in a wiretapped phone conversation that the massacre was his idea. But his defense attorneys argued successfully that the tapes were mistranslated.

Four other accused masterminds—Youssef Belhadj, Hassan el Haski, Abdulmajid Bouchar and Rafa Zouhier—were acquitted of murder but convicted of lesser charges including belonging to a terrorist organization. They received sentences of between 12 and 18 years.

Six lesser suspects were also acquitted on all charges. Fourteen other people were found guilty of lesser charges like belonging to a terrorist group, bringing the total number convicted to 21 of the 28 defendants.

Most of the suspects are young Muslim men of North African origin who allegedly acted out of allegiance to al-Qaida to avenge the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, although Spanish investigators say they did so without a direct order or financing from Osama bin Laden’s terror network.

No evidence of Basque involvementBermudez said the probe had turned up no evidence of involvement by the armed Basque separatist group ETA, dismissing the initial argument of the conservative pro-U.S. government in power at the time of the attacks. The theory is still embraced by many Spaniards.

The blasts targeting crowded, rush-hour commuter trains on the morning of March 11, 2004 traumatized Spain and arguably toppled its government—the first time an administration that backed the U.S.-led Iraq war was voted out of power.

That day of carnage, wailing sirens and cell phones going unanswered amid the wreckage of blackened, gutted trains is etched in Spain’s collective memory and is now widely known as simply 11-M, much as the term 9-11 conjures up so much pain for Americans.

The sentences of thousands of years for lead suspects are largely symbolic because the maximum jail time for a terrorism conviction in Spain is 40 years. Spain has no death penalty or life imprisonment.

Seven suspected ringleaders of the attacks—including the operational chief and an ideologue—blew themselves up in a safe house outside Madrid three weeks after the massacre as special forces who tracked them via cell phone traffic moved in to arrest them.

The attacks had profound political repercussions and left Spaniards deeply and bitterly divided between supporters of conservatives in power at the time of the massacre and Socialists who accused the government of making Spain a target for al-Qaida by supporting the Iraq war and sending in 1,300 peacekeepers.

The government of then-Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar initially blamed Basque separatists for the bombings, even as evidence of Islamic involvement emerged.

This led to charges of a cover-up to deflect attention away from the government’s support for the war, and in elections three days after the bombings the conservatives lost to the opposition Socialists, who quickly brought the Spanish troops home.

posted by Prince and Gina Parker @ 2:18 PM, ,


That's Interesting!

Has Absolutely Nothing To Do With Spain, But None The Less, Interesting.

October 16, 2007

All in the family: Cheney and Obama related

Obama is sworn into the Senate by his eighth cousin, Vice President Cheney.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Go back far enough, the saying goes, and everyone's related. But could it be possible that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney share a common ancestor?

Cheney's wife Lynne says yes.

In an interview on MSNBC Tuesday afternoon, Mrs. Cheney said that in the course of researching her husband's genealogy for her new book, "Blue Skies, No Fences," she discovered that the two public figures share an ancestor eight generations ago.

"Think about this," Mrs. Cheney said. "This is such an amazing American story that one ancestor, a man that came to Maryland, could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths as Dick's and Barack Obama's."

But is blood thicker than the partisan waters of Washington? Apparently not.
Even though Obama is related to her husband, Mrs. Cheney said she is not supporting the Illinois Democrat's White House bid.

Reacting to the news, Obama's campaign spokesman Bill Burton told CNN's Dana Bash with tongue in cheek, "Obviously, Dick Cheney is sort of the black sheep of the family."

But Obama's family ties to the Bush administration don't stop with Cheney. According to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times last September, Obama is also an 11th cousin of the president himself. The two share a 17th century Massachusetts relative.

posted by Prince and Gina Parker @ 8:32 AM, ,


Bomb plot trial to begin in Spain
From Al GoodmanMadrid Bureau Chief

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Thirty suspected Islamic terrorists go on trial Monday in the anti-terrorism courthouse they are charged with plotting to destroy with a truck bomb, according to a prosecution document viewed by CNN.

The alleged terrorists planned to kill hundreds of judges, prosecutors, support staff and police officers who work daily at the National Court, which tries cases of terrorism, the document said. They also planned to destroy files against other Islamic terrorist suspects, including those charged in the Madrid train bombings, it added.

Prosecutors identified the alleged ringleader of the plot as Abderrahmane Tahiri, 34, of Morocco.

Tahiri in the summer of 2004 -- months after the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people and wounded 1,800 others -- sought to obtain 500 kg (1,100 lbs) of explosives for the courthouse attack, the document said.

"The level of preparation for the attack had reached the point where" Tahiri and six other defendants "had expressed willingness to blow themselves up in carrying out the attack against the National Court," the document said.

Others on trial allegedly played supporting roles.

A court source told CNN that all of the defendants have insisted on their innocence at arraignments and other pre-trial hearings.

Police arrested most of the suspects in October 2004. Many of them had been convicted of other crimes and were serving time in prison, the document said.

The trial is due to start at 10 a.m. (0900 GMT) in a secure basement courtroom equipped with bullet-proof glass separating the defendants from the three judges who will hear the case, and more bullet-proof glass separating the public from the court.

The defendants include 19 Algerians, 5 Moroccans and others from Mauritania, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon and Spain.

Tahiri could get 66 years in prison if convicted on four counts: conspiracy to commit a deadly terrorist attack, leader of a terrorist group, document forgery, and counterfeiting for terrorist aims, the document said.

Some others could get just 10 years if convicted on one count of belonging to a terrorist group.
Prosecutors base their case on testimony and documentation provided by a Moroccan man operating as a police informant and on wiretaps and intercepted correspondence between some of the suspects, according to the document and the court source.

There are streets on three sides of the courthouse. The main street runs next to the building. An attack "would have been easy" at the time, the court source said.

But the courthouse has since increased security, installing thick metal barriers to block traffic on the side and back of the building.

Tahiri started the alleged terrorist group while serving a sentence in the Topas prison in northwest Salamanca province. He recruited and indoctrinated some fellow inmates, and the group later spread to another prison as transfers occurred, and to eastern and southern Spain, outside of prisons, the document said.

Two of the defendants, Dibali Abdellah, 32, of Algeria, and Baanou Abdullah, 22, of Lebanon, also corresponded with three men -- Mohamed Amine Salameh, Mohamed Abouhahima and Nidaly Ayyad -- who were serving sentences in the United States for their links to the 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the document said.

Abdellah faces 12 years if convicted of leadership in a terrorist group and Abdullah could get 10 years if convicted of membership in a terrorist group, the document said.

Another defendant, Hocine Kedache, 51, helped hide a key fugitive of the Madrid train bombings who later blew himself up with other prime suspects in a suburb of Madrid. Kedache could get 10 years if convicted of membership in a terrorist group, the document said.

The trial is expected to last until Christmas and the initial testimony by 30 defendants could take weeks, the court source said.

posted by Prince and Gina Parker @ 9:04 AM, ,



Pamplona's Yearly Madness

Who are the three people that history records as those who have walked on water?


1.) Jesus

2.) Peter

3.) Some dude named José...

posted by Prince and Gina Parker @ 10:15 AM, ,


In Spain Such A Thing Would Happen!

Spanish town tosses world′s biggest salad
A town in southern Spain on Saturday tossed what local officials said was the world's largest salad, involving 6,700 kilograms (14,740 pounds) of lettuce, tomato, onion, pepper and olives. It took 20 cooks over three hours to mix all the ingredients needed to make the salad in the town of Pulpi in the province of Almeria, one of Spain's main fruit and vegetable growing areas.
"Excellent coordination since the beginning made it possible to meet this challenge," said Lorenzo Navarro, the head of the Association of Businessmen and Storekeepers of Pulpi which organized the event with the town hall. The salad will be distributed to restaurants in Pulpi who will provide it for free to their clients, he told reporters.
A Guinness World Records judge was on hand to confirm that the salad had set a new record, Spanish media reported.


posted by Prince and Gina Parker @ 10:01 AM, ,




Two alleged Syrian terrorists arrested in Madrid

The men are alleged to have been laundering money in Spain to finance terrorist activity

Spanish Interior Minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalbaca, has revealed that two Syrian men arrested on the orders of the National Court in Madrid were found to have 700,000 € hidden in several bank accounts across the world.

The Minister told the press that the money was controlled by companies and frontmen and was being used to be invested in real estate in Spain.

The laundered profits from the investments were allegedly being used to finance Islamic terrorist activity.

The Minister said a search of the home of the two men had revealed a large amount of material, including documentation on international terrorism, which is now being studied by the police, who have not ruled out making more arrests in the case.

The two men have been named as 48 year old Bassan Dalasi Satu and 30 year old Samer Dabbas.

posted by Prince and Gina Parker @ 3:35 AM, ,


Spain signs permanent anti-terrorist protocol with US

The agreement establishes secure procedures for exchanging terrorist information between the two countries

The governments of Spain and the United States have signed a protocol agreement to exchange information on those suspected of links with terrorist organisations and organised crime.

The signatories were the Secretary of State for Security, Antonio Camacho, and the US Ambassador to Spain, Eduardo Aguirre.

The agreement establishes a permanent cooperation between Spain’s National Anti-Terrorism Coordination Centre, the CNCA, and the United States Terrorist Screening Centre, the TSC.

While the contents of the protocol are to remain classified, the EFE news agency reports that it comes within the framework of the collaboration agreement on terrorism in place between the two countries, and includes a series of procedures for information exchange on detecting terrorists.

It establishes points of contact between the two agencies, and secure means of exchanging intelligence information.
The agreement follows meetings Camacho had with the FBI Director and the US Attorney General on a trip the Secretary of State made to Washington and New York a year ago.

posted by Prince and Gina Parker @ 3:27 AM, ,


Bogus 9/11 victim is from Cataluña
Tania Head, dismissed as the president of a 9/11 survivors group last week, is said to be Alicia Esteve Head from Barcelona
A woman suspected of being a bogus survivor of the 9/11 attack in New York, and dismissed last week as the president of a survivors’ group, is from Cataluña it seems.
Tania Head was dismissed as president of the Survivors Network, according to the New York Times, amid doubts on the veracity of her claim that she survived the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center twin towers, and was badly burned when she escaped.
She also claimed that her fiancé was killed in the North Tower, although none of his friends and relatives say they have ever heard of her.
It now appears from an article in La Vanguardia this Saturday that her real name is Alicia Esteve Head, and she is from Barcelona.
She is said to come from a well-known business family in the Catalan capital which was involved in the Planasdemunt scandal in 1992, and which saw her father and brother, Francisco Esteve Corbella and Francisco Javier Esteve Corbella Head, serving time for document forgery.
The EFE news agency says Alicia – or Tania – claimed she worked in Merrill Lynch offices in the South Tower, and had studied at Harvard and Stanford Universities. All three bodies have denied her claim.

posted by Prince and Gina Parker @ 3:21 AM, ,