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.
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