Madrid train bomb suspect jailed
From CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman
MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- A Spanish judge has charged a Syrian-born man with belonging to a terrorist group and remanded him to jail for links to the Madrid train bombings last year, a National Court spokeswoman has told CNN.
The suspect, Mohannad Almallah Dabas, was initially arrested in March 2004, soon after the attacks, and charged with the lesser crime of collaborating with a terrorist group. But he was quickly released from jail.
Police arrested him for a second time last Friday near his Madrid home and, based on new evidence, the judge, Juan del Olmo, charged him after Monday's arraignment at National Court with belonging to a terrorist group and ordered him to remain in jail.
Almallah Dabas' brother, Moutaz Almallah Dabas, 39, was arrested near London on Saturday on a Spanish warrant that alleged he, like his brother in Spain, had terrorist links to the train bombings in Madrid. Moutaz Almallah Dabas appeared before English judicial authorities on Monday and was ordered to remain in custody.
Seventy-five people are now charged in the train bombing case, including 23 who are in jail in Spain on the most serious charges, while others charged with lesser offenses are out of jail but not out of legal jeopardy. The trial is expected to start perhaps by the end of the year, the court spokeswoman said.
The coordinated bombings on four morning commuter trains killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500. Authorities mainly blame Islamic terrorists for the attacks, but say they were aided by some Spaniards who helped them to obtain explosives from a mine in northern Spain.
Spanish police last Friday said the Almallah Dabas brothers had allegedly recruited young Muslim radicals in Spain to be sent abroad for terrorist training. Between the two brothers, Moutaz "had a position of relevance and leadership," they said.
The indoctrination, protection and housing of potential radicals was in part carried out in a Madrid apartment, near the city's main bull ring, which was rented in the name of Moutaz Almallah Dabas, the Spanish police said.
The brothers used "strict security measures to avoid detection of their activities," the police said.
Police last year spelled the first name of Mohannad Almallah Dabas as Mouhammad. Authorities could not immediately explain the discrepancy.
Police said Mohannad was linked to several other suspects in the train bombings, including a principal suspect, Basel Ghalyoun, also of Syria, who is currently in Spanish jail, and another prime suspect, the late Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Farket, a Tunisian.
Police also linked Mohannad to Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, the alleged al Qaeda leader in Spain who is in jail and awaiting trial this spring on terrorism charges that are separate from the Madrid train bombings.
Mohannad became a member of the ruling Spanish Socialist Party last May, two months after the train bombings and while he was already charged in the case, although out of jail. The party expelled him last Friday after learning of his arrest, "due to serious accusations against him," the party said in a written statement, seeking to ease the embarrassment of having accepted a suspected terrorist among its party rank and file.
Most of the bombing suspects live in Spain, although many were originally from Morocco, Spanish judicial authorities said.
