Suspects 'planned Spanish suicide attacks'

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- The Spanish judge overseeing the arraignment of 10 terrorism suspects said Wednesday that they had "planned to carry out a series of suicide attacks" last weekend on public transportation in Barcelona.


Spanish police move suspected terrorist detainees following last weekend's arrests in Barcelona.


In a sequence of six-page rulings, one for each of the 10 suspects he ordered to be held in jail after their arraignments.

"Judge Ismael Moreno wrote that the suspects "had achieved human operational capacity and were very close to achieving full technical capacity with explosives, with the aim of using the those explosives for a jihadi terrorist attack, and it can be deduced that the members of the terrorist cell now broken up planned to carry out a series of suicide attacks last weekend, January 18 to 20, against public transport in the city of Barcelona."
CNN has viewed a copy of one of the court orders.

The ruling said three suspected suicide bombers had traveled from Pakistan to Barcelona since October, with the most recent one arriving as late as mid-January.

The three had followed another Pakistani man -- the alleged explosives expert -- who had just arrived after a five-month stay in Pakistan.

"This pattern is common in Islamic extremist groups, which to carry out an attack usually send in the suicide bombers shortly before it will occur," the judge wrote.

"The arrivals of these three occurred about two months after the presumed bomb maker had returned (to Barcelona)."

Further, Moreno wrote that an informant had told authorities about the suspected suicide bombers and the suspected explosives expert.

He added that police found nitrocellulose and mechanical and electrical elements that could be used to make one or more bombs.

Twelve men were arraigned Wednesday, but Moreno allowed two to go free. Those two -- Pakistani nationals who had been arrested with the others -- were released for lack of evidence, according to their court-appointed lawyer and a court source.

The 10 who were kept in custody include eight Pakistani nationals and two Indian nationals who are Muslim.

At least two of the 10 were prepared to be suicide bombers, prosecutor Vicente Gonzalez alleged during the arraignment, according to a government spokeswoman. The other eight were charged with fabrication and possession of explosives, she added.

The arraignments took place before Moreno at the National Court in Madrid, which handles terrorism cases.

The suspects were arrested last weekend in Barcelona and taken to Civil Guard headquarters in Madrid, where they were questioned. Authorities announced the arrests on Saturday.

Spanish and other European intelligence agencies told Spanish police that the suspects were acquiring bomb-making materials. These included four timers to activate bombs, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Saturday.

"They had taken a step beyond radicalization and were trying to get the means to make explosives," Rubalcaba said.

The Interior Minister said authorities searched five homes in Barcelona and seized the four timers along with computer information.

The ministry on Saturday released photographs -- which it said police shot immediately after the searches -- showing what appeared to be timers, batteries, cables and ball bearings.

Spain's largest-circulation daily, El Pais, reported that traces of an explosive sometimes used by Islamic terrorists were also found during the searches.

Spanish news media reported that authorities became alarmed recently when a known Pakistani militant arrived in Barcelona.

More than 250 suspected Islamic extremists have been arrested in Spain since the Madrid train bombings killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800 on March 11, 2004, the Interior Ministry has told CNN.

Last October, more than a dozen Islamic extremists were convicted in Madrid for their roles in the train bombings.

But many of the suspected Islamic radicals arrested in Spain since the train bombings were accused only of financing or recruitment for Islamic terrorist activities.

Spain remains on "permanent alert" against Islamic terrorism. Al Qaeda communiques regularly make specific references to Spain.

posted by Prince and Gina Parker @ 8:19 AM, ,




The Spanish National Anthem.
Saturday, January 19, 2008


MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- The search is back on for words to the Spanish national anthem.

Spain's basketball team: Able to hum the national anthem, but not sing words.

The lack of lyrics in Spain's anthem has long created awkward moments for winning Spanish athletes at the Olympics. They stand on the podium silently or hum along while winning athletes from other nations sing when their anthem is played during their moment of triumph.

With the summer Olympic Games fast-approaching, the Spanish Olympic Committee stirred the lyric-writing impulses of Spaniards by sponsoring a competition to provide words for the anthem.
The contest drew 7,000 entries, and an expert panel selected a winner. The committee announced plans for renowned Spanish tenor Placido Domingo to sing the lyrics on Monday.
Then, suddenly, the committee discarded the winning lyrics.
"Once Spaniards heard these lyrics, they sparked a lot of controversy, even rejection," Alejandro Blanco, president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, told a packed news conference this week.
The now-discarded winning lyrics had begun with, "Viva Espana," or "long-live Spain," and critics complained that phrase harkened back to the right-wing dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, who led a military uprising in 1936 against the elected government and won a Civil War, ruling Spain until his death in 1975.
"You have to consider that many Spaniards don't consider the national anthem as their own. It was played a lot under Franco," said Margarita Saenz-Diez, a journalist.
Spain is now a democracy, but many still bristle at the military march that's served for more than two centuries as the national anthem.
Spain is made up of many different peoples, and five languages are spoken across the country. The Catalans in the northeast and the Basques in the north already have their own national songs with lyrics.
Getting agreement on any lyrics to the national anthem is no easy task and would ultimately have to be approved by Parliament.
The president of the Spanish Olympic Committee conceded he doesn't know when there will be lyrics for the anthem, and many here say there isn't enough time to get lyrics approved before the Aug. 8 start of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.
Yet the search goes on.
"We will continue with the idea of an anthem with lyrics," Blanco said.

posted by Prince and Gina Parker @ 10:46 AM, ,