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Serbia hands over Madrid suspect

By CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman

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Bouchar with Serbian police.

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Madrid (Spain)
Spain
Serbia
Crime, Law and Justice

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Serbia on Sunday extradited to Spain a Moroccan man who is prime suspect in the Madrid train bombings last year that killed 191 people, the Spanish Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The suspect, Abdelmajid Bouchar, 22, arrived at a military airport near Madrid in the custody of four Spanish officers assigned to Interpol, the international police agency.

Prosecutors suspect Bouchar of a "decisive role" in the coordinated attacks against four morning rush-hour commuter trains.

Spain has sought Bouchar since last year on an international arrest warrant. Serbian authorities detained him last June 23 on an immigration violation - while he was using forged documents - but later determined he was wanted for the train bombings, officials said.

The Spanish government formally sought his extradition last August 26.

The National Court, investigating the bombings, wants Bouchar on charges of 191 murders, for each of the fatal victims in the March 11, 2004 attacks, attempted murder for 1,500 others -- for those injured -- and for possession of explosives, officials said.

A total of 109 people, many of them Moroccan-born, have been charged in the case, and 25 remain in jail, a National Court spokeswoman told CNN. Indictments are expected possibly next month and a trial would follow.

The National Court said Bouchar's fingerprints were found at two key locations: A rural home near Madrid where the bombs were thought to have been assembled and at a suburban Madrid apartment where seven other key suspects in the attacks blew themselves up as police closed in on their hideout three weeks after bombings.

Spanish authorities announced Bouchar's arrest in Serbia on August 17. That was after Serbian police contacted Interpol in an attempt to determine his true identity. When arrested, authorities said Bouchar was carrying forged Iraqi documents.

In the train bombing case, officials said Bouchar was on the street as police closed in on the suspected train bomber hideout in the Madrid suburb of Leganes on April 3, 2004. Bouchar detected their presence, shouted up in Arabic to the other suspects in the apartment and took off running.

A gun battle ensued between the suspects inside the apartment and police on the street, before special operations officers closed in hours later after a siege.

As they did, the seven suspects, including several prime suspects in the train bombings, blew themselves up, also killing one of the special operations police officers.

A search of the apartment explosion site subsequently turned up Bouchar's fingerprints and a Moroccan passport in his name, officials said. His fingerprints also appeared at a rural home in Chinchon, on the eastern outskirts of Madrid, where authorities say the bombs were assembled before being taken to the commuter trains.

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