A criminal court in Morocco convicted a 31-year-old man on Thursday of belonging to a group involved in the 2004 Madrid train bombings and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors at the Sale criminal court, which specializes in terrorism cases, had requested that Abdelilah Ahriz be given a life sentence, saying witness testimony and DNA sampling proved Ahriz’ involvement in preparing the simultaneous train bombings that killed 191 people.
At the end of the one-day trial on Thursday, the court said in a public verdict it found Ahriz guilty of several charges, including “belonging to a criminal group that aimed to commit acts of terrorism” and collecting funds for terror groups.
An electrician, Ahriz had settled in Spain in 1999 but left the country shortly after the bombings.
He moved to Syria in 2005, where he was arrested and extradited.
He was tried in Sale, near the capital, Rabat, under a 1997 agreement between Spain and Morocco that allows the prosecution of a suspect in his native country for crimes committed abroad.
Ahriz was previously acquitted by a Moroccan court for his role in the Madrid bombings, but authorities arrested him again in June to try him on broader charges.
He denied all the accusations against him on Thursday. His lawyer, Abdellatif Ennouari, said that he would appeal the sentence because it was too severe.
“I hope the appeals court will be fairer,” he said, saying it was unlawful to prosecute his client twice on similar charges.
The Sale court said police had conducted new tests that confirmed that Ahriz’s DNA matched samples found by Spanish authorities in two locations where the Madrid bombers blew themselves up to avoid arrest after the attacks.
His DNA was found on a comb in an apartment used in Leganes, near Madrid, and on a pair of bloodstained pants at a country house in Morata de Tajuna, outside the capital, the court said.
The Madrid attacks were among Europe’s worst ever and injured more than 1,800 people. Most of the suspected bombers were Moroccans, several of whom are serving lengthy sentences in Spain.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS