Spain jails 2 for explosives link
From CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman
 |  Judge made no link between the two suspects and the Madrid train bombings. |
| |
MADRID, Spain (CNN)) -- Two Moroccan men suspected of trying to acquire explosives for an imminent terrorist attack in Spain or Morocco have been remanded to prison by a Spanish judge, a court official said Monday.
The two, Majid Bakkali, 34, and Mohamed Douha, were arrested Wednesday near Barcelona.
Judge Fernando Andreu saw them separately in closed-door arraignments Sunday at the National Court in Madrid and sent them to prison on charges of belonging to a terrorist group and conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack, the court official said. The charges were made public Monday.
Bakkali, from Beni Said, Morocco, and Douha, from Casablanca, denied any links to terrorism, the court official said, but they did admit to contacting, in Barcelona, a Czech citizen who promised them "a good business deal."
One of the suspects said the deal meant acquiring a substance known as "red mercury" but the other suspect told the judge the deal referred to acquiring gold, the court official said.
Spain's state news agency EFE reported Monday, citing a court source, that "red mercury" can be used to make "dirty bombs" -- conventional bombs carrying radioactive material.
Spanish Interior Ministry statements issued last Wednesday said the two suspects had been trying to acquire explosives since last September and had been in "contact with an intermediary from a central European nation where they thought they could obtain explosives."
The judge made no link between the two suspects and the Madrid train bombings of last March 11 which killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500. Investigators suspect the explosives used in that attack were manufactured in Spain and stolen from Spanish mining operations.
Since then, controls have tightened over the inventory of explosives at mines.
A third Moroccan, Abdelkader Farhaoui, who was arrested with the other two last Wednesday near Barcelona, was released Sunday by the judge, who found no evidence linking him to the plot, the court official said.
Also on Monday, a different Spanish Judge, Ismael Moreno, remanded to jail a fourth Moroccan, Mustafa Farhaoui -- a cousin of Abdelkader Farhaoui -- on the charge of belonging to a terrorist group. He was arrested Friday as part of the same operation that arrested Bakkali and Douha, Spain's state news agency EFE reported.
Spanish officials have arrested dozens of suspected Islamic terrorists since the Madrid train bombings.
Some have been charged in that attack; others have been charged in a separate, alleged plot to blow up the National Court, which handles terrorism cases; and still others, such as the latest three suspects remanded to jail, have been detained for other alleged plots.
