Testimony Ends for 28 Men Charged With Madrid Train Bombings
MADRID, July 2 (Reuters) — A Spanish court finished hearing testimony on Monday in the trial of 28 men charged with train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people in 2004.
After four months and 17 days of evidence about the attacks, which were believed to have been carried out by Islamic militants, judges were expected to announce verdicts in October, court sources said.
The accused, most of them Arabs living in Spain but also several Spaniards, are accused of aiding, planning or carrying out the nearly simultaneous bombings of four packed commuter trains arriving in central Madrid from working-class suburbs on the morning of March 11, 2004. All deny involvement.
“I have nothing to do with March 11 and for that reason I ask you for justice,” said Jamal Zougham, one of those accused of carrying out the attack. “There is not one piece of evidence that proves that I have anything to do with this terrible event.” He has spent the past four months sitting with other suspects in a bulletproof glass box in the court set in Madrid parkland.
Prosecutors contend that the attack was carried out by a group linked to Al Qaeda, with help from local petty criminals who supplied dynamite stolen from mines in northern Spain.
They have asked for sentences of up to tens of thousands of years, although the maximum any individual can serve in Spain is 40 years.
Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, one of those accused of being a mastermind of the Madrid bombings, told the court he condemned the attacks.
Immediately after the bombings, Spain’s conservative government blamed the Basque separatist group ETA for the attack.
Days later, after the evidence pointed instead at Islamic militants, the conservatives lost elections to the Socialists, who immediately fulfilled an election pledge by pulling Spanish troops out of Iraq. Speculation that ETA was somehow involved has continued, however.
State prosecutors say the bombers acted on a call by Osama bin Laden to attack countries backing the American-led war in Iraq.
One man of 29 originally charged has been acquitted.
Other suspects were never brought to trial. Several escaped, and seven blew themselves up in a suburban Madrid apartment while surrounded by police officers on April 3, 2004. A police officer was also killed in the explosion.
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