The trial of 28 men charged in the 2004 Madrid terror attacks ended on Monday with victim groups clamoring for justice, suspects maintaining their innocence and the defense demanding acquittals.
The defendants are accused of train bombings that killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800 on March 11, 2004.
Verdicts in the trial, which began Feb. 15 at a high-security Madrid courthouse, were scheduled for mid-October.
"I ask you for a fair sentence, and in the case of Rabei Osman, a judgment of acquittal," defense lawyer Endika Zulueta said in his closing arguments on the last day of the trial. Osman is accused of being one of the masterminds of the attacks.
Zulueta said Osman could not be convicted on the basis of what he called unprovable claims and distorted facts which were used to present his client as a radical, extremist person and a terrorist.
"Based on nothing, and with an astounding frivolousness, they ask for a jail term of 40,000 years," he said while Osman was seen listening to his lawyer's comment through headphones.
Italian police arrested Osman in Milan, Italy, in June 2004. The main evidence against him was wiretapped conversations in which Osman allegedly tells an associate in Italy the attacks were his idea. He has repeatedly denied it was his voice in the calls.
The lawyer for Moroccan Jamal Zougam, accused of planting some of the bombs, said his client had nothing to do with the attacks and dismissed witnesses' accounts that he had been on the train.
"There is no trace of Jamal Zougam in any of the places [linked to the bombings], neither genetically nor visually," defense lawyer Jose Luis Abascal said.
He added that his defendant, who ran a shop that sold most of the cell phone cards used to set off the bombs, was made the scapegoat in the aftermath of the bombings because he was one of the first suspects to be identified publicly.
"His was the photo of the official culprit. He was the scapegoat that was offered to all of us," Abascal said.
All the defendants were given the chance to make a final statement and most of them made use of it, including Osman and Zougam, saying they were innocent and asking for justice. Some of them also condemned terrorism on the last day of the trial.
Zougam said that he "had already served three years in prison due to witnesses' lies."
"I don't know who did it, if it was the work of Islamists, probably it was, but I didn't do it," Zougam told the court reading from a handful of handwritten notes.
"I'm innocent of the March 11 bombings and of any terrorist attack," said Moroccan Hassan Haski, who prosecutors say was the leader in Spain of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, a militant organization who officials say has links to several of the alleged attackers.
The prosecution is seeking prison terms of nearly 39,000 years each for eight prime suspects if convicted of mass murder and the attempted murder of 1,841 people who were injured. However, under Spanish law, the maximum time they could serve on a terrorism conviction is 40 years. Spain has no death penalty or life imprisonment.
The other defendants face far shorter sentences if convicted on lesser charges such as membership of or collaboration with a terrorist group.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS