Western Resistance

« Britain's Muslim Terror Trainers Guilty | | UK: Wife Of Muslim Bomber On Trial »

February 27, 2008

Spain: Twenty Islamists Convicted

News from AFP, DPA, AKI, Reuters, VOA, International Herald Tribune and CNN:

On Wednesday, Spain's High Court found 20 Islamic radicals guilty of belonging to terrorist groups. However, the prosecution had failed in its attempts to link them to an actual plot to blow up the Spanish High Court, which would have gained more serious jail sentences upon conviction.

The trial began on October 15, 2007, when thirty individuals were accused of being part of a plot to drive an explosives-laden truck outside the High Court and then to detonate it.

The alleged leader of this plot had been Abderrahman Tahiri aka Mohammed Achraf, an Algerian who was born in the United Arab Emirates. As recounted then by WR:

This individual is said to have formed four cells to attack Spanish targets since 2000. Tahiri had been jailed in a prison near Salamanca between 1999 and 2002 for credit card fraud, and it was while in prison that he gathered most of his recruits. He spread his ideas to other prisons, according to letters recovered from jail inmates.

Tahiri was in Switzerland using his alias when he was detained. He was extradited to Spain to stand trial, and prosecutors want him to serve 46 years in jail. The group that Tahiri was acting for, Martyrs for Morocco, is said to have Al Qaeda links. It was disbanded in 2004.

Tahiri is said to have ordered one of the other accused - Kamara Birahima DIadie, Mauritanian national - with acquiring a ton of dynamite with which to carry out proposed bomb attacks.

The plot had been to attack the High Court (Audencia Nacional) in Madrid using 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of explosive in a truck. Other targets were a train station in central Madrid, and the HQ of the Popular Party. This party was in power, led by Jose Maria Aznar, when the Islamist group was uncovered in 2004.

There are connections between this trial and the trial of 28 people who are charged with the Madrid train bombings of March 11, 2004 which killed 191 people. One of the accused in the current trial (Abdelkrim Benesmail) is a witness at the other train bomb trial.

Benesmail had earlier been convicted for membership of terror group GIA (Groupe Islam Arme) as had Allekema Lamari. Allekema Lamari had been one of seven people who blew themselves up in an apartment in the Madrid suburb of Leganes on April 3, 2004 (pictured). This explosion also killed one police officer and wounded 11 more.

Another individual who is currently under protection has provided evidence for both trials.

34-year old Abderrahmane Tahiri, alias Mohamed Achraf, received the highest sentence this Wednesday, that of 14 years. Tahiri was imprisoned for 14 years for being the head of a terrorist group. However the National Court (High Court) found that his plan to set off a truck bomb did not legally constitute "conspiracy" as it was no more than an "undeveloped individual plan".

The sentence against him, issued by a three-judge panel, included the statement: "The conception of a possible terrorist objective does not constitute the existence of conspiracy, but is an activity that is part of belonging to a terrorist group."

Tahiri had created one terror cell in Topas, a town in northern Spain. He had exchanged letters with inmates in jails across Spain, aas had other suspects. These letters of recruitment were for attacks to be carried out ince the inmates were freed, the judges' statement read.

The twenty convicted individuals had been found guilty of recruiting others in prison to become part of terror cells. Of these, 18 (including Tahiri) were found guilty of belonging to a terrorist organisation. Two others were found guilty of collaborating with the terror group. These individuals received jail sentences ranging from five to fourteen years.

Prosecutors had asked for sentences ranging from 8 to 43 years for the plot to blow up the High Court, but the case for such a plot was not satisfactorily proven.

Ten others, mainly Algerians, were acquitted of all charges against them. Nine had been accused of belonging to a terrorist group and one for collaboration with such a group.

The majority of those who had been on trial had been arrested in October 2004. The trial had concluded in January, but the sentencing had only happened on Wednesday.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at February 27, 2008 6:31 PM

Comments

Post a comment