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Europe
Algerian Suspect Brought to Madrid Court
2004-03-17
EFL:
An Algerian man who in January allegedly threatened mass bloodshed in Madrid was brought under tight security Wednesday to a Madrid court to determine if he had foreknowledge of Spain’s worst-ever terrorist attack. Bomb-sniffing dogs, Civil Guards and national police guarded the National Court as Ali Amrous was rushed inside in a vehicle. When Amrous, who apparently is an indigent, was first arrested in January in the northern city of San Sebastian after a neighborhood disturbance, he shouted at officers: "We will fill Madrid with the dead," police said.
Is that all you have on him?
Arrested again Tuesday, Amrous was to appear before Judge Baltasar Garzon on Wednesday in a closed hearing.
Sounds like a loud-mouthed hot head.
Three Moroccans and two Indians have already been arrested in Spain’s bloodiest terrorist attack, which authorities increasingly suspect was carried out by a cell linked to al-Qaida. The interior ministry initially said Saturday the five were being held on suspicion of falsifying cellphones and prepaid phone cards. Local press reports earlier said the two Indians were believed by police to have been involved in the sale of cell-phones or prepaid phone cards used to detonate the string of bombs on March 11 that killed 201 people on Madrid commuter trains. But the daily El Pais reported Wednesday that the fingerprints of one of the Indians, Vinay Kohly, matches a fingerprint found at the scene of a 2001 murder.
Oh really? So he’s not just a innocent cell-phone salesman.
Police investigating the murder of Indian shopowner Kamal Karamchan Dad in his Madrid electronics shop found the fingerprint on tape that had been used to bind the victim’s hands and feet. Dad was asphyxiated with a plastic bag during an apparent robbery. The fingerprint did not match any database - until Kohly’s prints were run after his arrest Saturday, El Pais said.
CSI Madrid shoots and scores!
Police reportedly suspect at least six Moroccans took direct part in the Madrid train bombings, with five remaining at large. The sixth, Jamal Zougam, 30, has been linked to al-Qaida and is under arrest. Zougam has already been identified by Garzon as a follower of Imad Yarkas, the alleged leader of Spain’s al-Qaida cell who is jailed on suspicion he helped plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. With signs that the bombings were carried out by Islamic extremists who operate and have confederates in several countries, FBI agents are helping Spanish police in using fingerprints and names to seek a full picture of Zougam and the four other suspects in custody. A U.S. official said "it’s increasingly likely Islamic extremists were involved in these attacks. In terms of assigning responsibility, it isn’t clear."
"We know it's turbans. We just aren't sure which turbans."
"It’s not clear who these groups were," the official said, referring to whether they had links to al-Qaida and other extremist groups or even to the Basque separatist group ETA. A suspected link between the Madrid bombings and suicide bomb attacks in Casablanca, Morocco, last year grew stronger Tuesday when French private investigator Jean-Charles Brisard described a phone tap in which Zougam said he had met with Mohamed Fizazi, the spiritual leader of Salafia Jihadia, a clandestine Moroccan extremist group. Salafia Jihadia is suspected of involvement in the Casablanca attack, which killed 33 people and 12 bombers and has been linked to al-Qaida. Brisard told The Associated Press the tapped call is cited in a lengthy report written for Garzon’s inquiry of the Sept. 11 attacks. Brisard, who is helping investigate the Sept. 11 attacks for lawyers representing some victims’ families, has a copy of the report. The Garzon document says that in the August 2001 monitored phone call, Zougam told Yarkas: "On Friday, I went to see Fizazi and I told him that if he needed money we could help him with our brothers," Brisard said. Fizazi was among 87 people sentenced in Morocco in August in a trial that centered on the Casablanca attacks. Fizazi received a 30-year sentence after being convicted of preaching radical Islam in mosques and meeting with the Casablanca attack’s perpetrators.
Posted by:Steve

#2  Now if they could afford gloves they wouldn't need to do a robbery-homicde would they? Does I have to do all the thinking around here? The Reagan tax cuts destroyed the subsidized glove export industry, laying the Spanish robber/homicider naked to bad things.

Whoa! Wait a sec... this isn't about AIDS? Never mind.
Posted by: Shipman   2004-3-17 6:10:10 PM  

#1  Geeze - here in the States, gloves are de rigeur on a robbery-homicide...
Posted by: mojo   2004-3-17 11:07:57 AM  

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