Two men were detained in Valencia on Friday morning on suspicion of having connections with the 11 March Madrid train bombers. However, a man arrested by Dutch police earlier this week has now been ruled out as being one of the suspects being sought by Spain. Interior Minister José Antonio Alonso said the two men detained in Valencia, one a Syrrian and the other Algerian, have been linked with the apartment in Leganes where seven of the terrorists blew themselves up in early April. They had both been held in custody for two days in late March, but had then been released. | "Ha, ya got nuthing on us, coppers!" |
Since then new evidence had arisen, including fingerprints found in the Leganes apartment and in an abandoned car used by the bombers that was found in Alcala de Henares in June. | "Hi, it's us again. Hands up!" |
The man released in the Netherlands was one of nine people picked up in a police swoop on the southern town of Roosendaal, near the Belgian border on Wednesday. Checks had since shown that his fingerprints did not match those of a suspect being sought by the Spanish police, said a spokesman for the Dutch prosecutor's office. The man was an uncle of one of the Madrid suspects and had the same first and family names, Mohamed Belhadj, as the 24-year-old Moroccan sought by Spanish police, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais. | Cue "Family Affair" theme music |
Although he was released from the terrorist charges, the man was immediately re-arrested by the Dutch police on drug charges. | Selling drugs to raise money for "the cause", perhaps? |
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