Court Delivers Verdict in Madrid Bombing Trial
Der Spiegel | October 31, 2007
The verdict is in in the Madrid bombing trial: 21 of the accused were found guilty, with three lead defendants sentenced to tens of thousands of years in prison. Seven men were acquitted, including Rabei Osman, one of the alleged ringleaders.
A Spanish judge on Wednesday found 21 people guilty of carrying out the 2004 Madrid bombings which killed 191 people. He acquitted seven of the accused, including Rabei Osman, one of the alleged ringleaders.
Three lead defendants were convicted of mass murder: Jamal Zougam, from Morocco, was sentenced to more than 40,000 years for planting at least one of the bombs, while Spaniard Emilio Suarez Trashorras and Moroccan Othman Gnaoui were also handed down sentences of tens of thousands of years. These sentences are, however, largely symbolic as Spanish law only allows for a maximum of 40 years to be served for terrorism convictions.
Europe's worst terrorist attack was carried out on March 11, 2004 when 10 bombs ripped through four commuter trains at rush hour. As well as killing 191, the bombs injured more than 1,800 people.
Twenty-nine people initially went on trial for crimes ranging from masterminding the attack to stealing explosives; one had since been acquitted.
Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez also announced compensation for the victims, ranging from €30,000 to €1.5 million, as survivors and family members gathered in the heavily-guarded courthouse to hear the verdicts.
The biggest surprise was the acquittal of Osman, also known as "Mohamed the Egyptian," who is already in jail in Italy after being convicted of belonging to an international terrorist group. He had allegedly bragged in a wiretapped phone conversation that the attacks were his idea, but his lawyer argued that the tapes were mistranslated.
Four other alleged ringleaders, Youssef Belhadj, Hassan el Haski, Abdelmajid Bouchar and Rafa Zouhier, were acquitted of murder but convicted of lesser charges. Nine of the accused were Spaniards while the others were immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East.
Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez, reading from a 600-page judgement, also ruled that the Basque terrorist group ETA had nothing to do with the bombings, dismissing the initial suspicions of the then conservative government. In 2004, the opposition accused then Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of blaming ETA, even as evidence of Islamist involvement mounted, in order to deflect attention away from his decision to send 1,300 Spanish troops to Iraq. His government lost parliamentary elections three days later to the Socialists, who quickly brought the troops home.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero welcomed the verdicts on Wednesday, saying: "Today justice was done and we must now look to the future."
