Al Qaeda suspects go on trial in Spain
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-22 17:27

The suspected leader of al Qaeda in Spain, accused of aiding the Sept. 11 hijackers, went on trial along with 23 others in Madrid on Friday in Europe's biggest court case against suspected Islamist militants.

Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, faces a sentence of 62,512 years on allegations of "terrorist murder" for helping the hijackers plan the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Two others -- Moroccan-born Driss Chebli and Syrian-born Ghasoub Al Abrash Ghayoun -- also are accused of aiding Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta during his travels in Spain in July 2001, when investigators believe he carried out the final planning for the attacks.

In this photo released by Interior Ministry, Moroccan Soufiane Raifak is seen on the day when Spanish judge filed provisional terrorism charges in Madrid Friday April 15, 2005, for allegedly helping to obtain explosives for last year's Madrid train bombings. [AP/file]

The trial could take months and comes after failed terrorism prosecutions in Germany and the Netherlands.

It is the first held at a high-security building remodeled for trials with multiple defendants where the suspects will sit in a bullet-proof glass cubicle.

Among those charged along with the defendants was al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but Spain cannot try suspects in their absence.

The case was prepared by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has been investigating Islamic militancy since 1991 -- long before train bombings by radicals linked to al Qaeda killed 191 people in Madrid on March 11, 2004.

Garzon has since forwarded the case to trial judges, and the High Court's top criminal judge, Javier Gomez Bermudez, will preside over a three-judge panel hearing the case.

All the suspects but one are charged with belonging to a terrorist group, including Tayseer Alouni, a reporter for Arab TV channel Al Jazeera who interviewed bin Laden shortly after the attacks on New York and Washington.

"I am innocent. Whatever the outcome of the trial I will maintain that until death," Alouni told Reuters. He has been under house arrest for medical reasons while the others have been held in jail.

"The judge's case always refers to circumstantial evidence, evidence taken from telephone calls in Arabic which were badly translated and even more badly interpreted by the police."

The only person convicted so far in relation to the Sept. 11 attacks is Moroccan-born Mounir el Motassadeq, who last year won an appeal against his conviction in Germany and is being tried a second time.

In the United States, accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui plans to plead guilty and admit a role in the attacks, U.S. government sources said on Wednesday.

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