A trial began Monday in Spain of two Spaniards suspected of providing explosives to Islamist terrorists who blew up four Madrid commuter trains in March 2004, killing 191 people in the country's worst terrorist attack. The trial in the northern city of Gijon did not concern the attacks directly, but explosives and drug trafficking allegedly carried out by former miner Emilio Suarez Trashorras and his brother- in-law Antonio Toro three years before the bombings. The two men will go on trial for the Madrid bombings along with 27 other suspects next year. In the Gijon trial, prosecutors are requesting 17 years in prison and fines of 218,000 euros (275,000 dollars) each for Trashorras and Toro. Charges were raised against the two after police discovered 55 kilos of hashish, 16 cartridges of Goma 2 Eco explosives and 94 detonators in a garage they were using. Goma 2 was the explosive used in the Madrid bombings. Trashorras and Toro had offered to sell the explosive to a nightclub employee who was a police informer in 2001. The explosives were thought to have been stolen from a mine where Trashorras had worked in the northern region of Asturias.
Prosecutors were requesting sentences of up to 13 years for 18 other accused charged with related offences. The 38 witnesses were to include Rafa Zouhier, a police informer of Moroccan origin, who is also among the Madrid bombings suspects.