SPAIN/FILE: Spain to mark 10th anniversary of 2004 Madrid train bombings

Record ID: 359023

  • Title: SPAIN/FILE: Spain to mark 10th anniversary of 2004 Madrid train bombings
  • Date: 8th March 2014
  • Summary: MADRID, SPAIN (FILE - MARCH 11, 2004) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) DAMAGED TRAIN ON TRACKS VARIOUS OF FIRE-FIGHTERS HOLDING SHEET AS THEY REMOVE BODY FROM SCENE DAMAGED CARRIAGE
  • Embargoed: 23rd March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain
  • Country: Spain
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVADM5KE3HB1XK6XJ2FLY3DG22LJ
  • Story Text: On Tuesday (March 11), Spain will mark the 10th anniversary of the 2004 Madrid train bombings, Europe's deadliest militant Islamist attack which killed 191 people when ten bombs packed into sports bags and detonated by mobile phones tore through four packed commuter trains, leaving the tracks strewn with bodies and 1,857 injured people.
    The attack not only traumatised Spain but also led to the fall of the conservative government that initially blamed Basque separatists ETA for the bombings, which hit three days before general elections.
    Whenever more evidence pointed to Islamist militants, Spaniards turned out in force to demonstrate against the government and voted them out of power. Soon afterwards, new Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero fulfilled an election pledge to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq.
    A Spanish court in 2007 found 21 people guilty of involvement in the train bombings but cleared three men of masterminding the attack.
    Seven of the accused, including two suspected ringleaders of the train bombings, blew themselves up in a suburban apartment after police closed in on them three weeks after the attack. 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.
    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 dreamed up the attack that ripped apart four packed 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. Nobody else got more than 23 years and seven people were acquitted.
    The high nominal sentences for the three men reflect their conviction on multiple counts, but the figures are academic as Spanish law says nobody can serve more than 40 years in jail.
    Relatives of victims were angry at the acquittals and the shorter sentences given to other defendants.
    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. His lawyer in Italy, where he is in jail for belonging to a terrorist group, said he fell on his knees in prayer when he heard the ruling.
    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 knowing they could be used for a terrorist attack.
    Rafa Zouhier, jailed for 10 years, will be released on May 16 after serving his sentence. He is in prison for putting Suarez Trashorras, who provided the explosives, in touch with one of the alleged masterminds Jamal Ahmidan, who was amongst the seven who blew themselves up.
    For survivors and the families of the dead, dealing with the events of the morning of March 11, 2004 is still difficult.
    Eulogio Paz lost his 20 year-old son Daniel who boarded a commuter train one station before an explosion ripped through it at El Pozo station.
    For Paz, the early days were the most difficult, but, ten years later, he still remembers his son every day.
    "The first months, the first years are the worst. In fact I have many dreams about Daniel, very good ones, dreams about the good times we had, that he had with his friends. He was a person who was well loved by his friends ..." he said stopping as he became overwhelmed by emotion. "It has been ten years, ten years gives you a lot of time to laugh, to cry, to travel, to work, to go on holiday but obviously remembering Daniel," he added, gaining his composure.
    For Paz, the true victims are not the families of the survivors, but those who died and those who were injured.
    On Tuesday, Spain will honour survivors, the dead and families of those who lost their lives on March 11, 2004 in a memorial service with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy who, at the time, was the People's Party candidate in an election his party lost three days after the attack.
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