Spain Says It Holds Half of Group That Bombed Trains

Friday, March 26, 2004
By Craig S. Smith & Tim Golden

New York Times Writers

Craig Smith reported for this article from Paris and Tim Golden from New York. Katrin Bennhold contributed reporting from Madrid

After his return from Afghanistan in 1998, Courtallier visited Islamic militants in London who gave him contacts in Spain and Morocco. Among those he later met were Zougam in Madrid and another militant, Abdelaziz Benyaich. Armed with evidence of contacts between Courtallier and Zougam, France urged Spain to detain Zougam for questioning and to search his apartment in 2000. It was only after pressing the country for a year that French officials succeeded in having Zougam questioned and his home searched.

"The Spanish weren't interested because they had not found evidence of his own involvement in a terrorist cell plotting against Spain."

PARIS, France -- NYT
Spanish investigators believe that they have identified the core group of Islamic militants who carried out the deadly train bombings in Madrid this month and that more than half of those involved are now in custody, a senior Spanish official said Friday.

Investigators are still trying to determine who was behind the plot, which was carried out by eight or nine Moroccan extremists who operated primarily in Spain and Morocco, the official said.

The assessment came as Spain announced it had provisionally charged another Moroccan in connection with the attacks, bringing to 12 the number of people who have been formally accused of involvement in the bombings on March 11, which killed 190. At least 20 have been arrested in the case, and 17 remain in custody. Most are Moroccan.

The fast-moving investigation has focused on a network of Moroccan extremists that also had ties to Islamic militant cells elsewhere in Europe. Moroccan officials said they, too, had detained several people, while the German police raided an apartment in Darmstadt where one of the Moroccans arrested in Spain this week lived briefly.

The Spanish official said one of the major suspects still at large was a Moroccan militant who had spent time in Turkey in recent years and had been sought before the bombings in connection with a Qaeda cell that operated in Spain.

A witness who survived the bombings has identified a photograph of the Moroccan, whose name was not disclosed, as someone who had been on board one of the four commuter trains that was destroyed, officials said.

(More: NYTimes.com / International)

2004 © The New York Times Company.

Dan