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Europe
Spain Ignored Evidence That Zougam Stole Telephones and Committed Other Crimes
2004-03-20
From the Wall Street Journal, March 19, "Morocco to Madrid, A Bomb Suspect Grew Radicalized." I’m not able to link to the article, so I typed the following excerpts.
Three years ago, Spain’s national police stormed the apartment of Jamal Zougam, a 30-year-old Moroccan immigrant who ran a cellphone business in Madrid. Among items they seized: phone numbers for suspected terrorists ..... The raid followed a request by a French magistrate who suspected Mr. Zougam was involved in terrorism. But the Spanish police figured the evidence wasn’t strong enough to arrest Mr. Zougam, or even to seek a judge’s permission for a wiretap. .... According to a senior French counter-terrorism official, Spain took a year to respond to France’s request to raid Mr. Zougram’s home. And Moroccan authorities said they warned Spain last year that Mr. Zougam ... was a member of a dangerous cell. ....

In 1999, the [Zougam] brothers ... opened a cellphone shop down the street.... It sold cellphones and cellphone cards, repaired phones and rented out booths for long-distance calls. The phones they sold were cheap, and business boomed. "Soon after they first opened the shop, they were selling so many cellphones and doing such an unbelievable volume that we in the neighborhood thought for sure that the phones were stolen," says Felix Cuesta, who tends a convenience store across the street. .... Wiretap transcripts indicate Mr. Zougam was associated with a new group of friends centered on Imad Edin Barakat Yarkas ... a man Spanish police later accused of leading a Madrid cell ... providing false documents, stolen credit cards ....
The usual activities, just as it calls for in the Koran...
In 2001, he [Zougam] got into a knife fight in a Madrid restaurant ... According to transcripts of wiretaps, a friend told Mr. Yarkas that Mr. Zougam ... stabbed the man’s friend, called Said, punched him, and hit him with an iron bar, but was stabbed too. Both landed in the hospital. Said threatened to tell police that Mr. Zougram’s business dealt in stolen cellphones.... A few months later, Mr. Zougam .... blurted out [in a wiretapped phone conversation with Yarkas] that he had obtained two passports.... All through the spring and summer of 2001, Mr. Yarkas used the phone shop to make calls to contacts around Spain, as well as to pick up unidentified merchandise ....
That usually translates to explosives or jihadis...
Following the raid on Mr. Zougam’s apartment, Spanish authorities asked for and received authorization to wiretap the homes and mobile phone of several people in the Madrid cell, but not Mr. Zougam. A senior Spanish anti-terrorism official says there wasn’t enough evidence against Mr. Zougam to tap his phone. ....
This is the lawn order approach to terrorism in action...
In June [2003] Moroccan authorities alerted Spanish officials that Mr. Zougam, whom they suspected of links to terrorism, had returned to Spain and was "particularly dangerous," according to the Moroccan government. Spain evidently didn’t heed the warning, letting Mr. Zougam continue to operate freely.
The Anzar government would have been re-elected last Sunday if it had simply prosecuted, jailed and then deported these Moroccan criminals a couple of years ago for dealing in stolen telephones and passports. The first step to fighting terrorism is to enforce laws against Moslem illegal immigration and criminal activities. This should be clear to the Spanish population and even to the Socialist government.
Posted by:Mike Sylwester

#11  Enforcing the laws has its place. Bust their chops on immigration, petty theft, jaywalking, etc., and you can disrupt their comm and planning to some extent. And you never know when you'll get lucky and nab a big boy.

My anger at the Kerry position (such as it is until he flips again) is that he seems to think that this is ALL you need to do -- and since he's been happy to hobble the intel community in the past, one wonders just exactly what "law enforcement" will be able to do under a Kerry administration.

I rather wish GWB would get out there more and talk about the integrated, pro-active approach: intel AND law enforcement AND special ops AND diplomacy AND finances AND military operations AND int'l cooperation where it's useful. GWB needs to offer a clear contrast, and he needs to be explicit about selling it.
Posted by: Steve White   2004-3-20 12:13:56 PM  

#10  
If the Madrid bombers hadn't committed some fairly minor crimes, are you arguing that nothing should have been done to stop them?

Why do you think I'm arguing that? Go back and read what I wrote. I'm arguing that it would be a huge improvement if Spain would start to aggressively enforce ordinary immigration and criminal laws against Moslems in Spain.

Deport them, so that if they blow up more trains, it will be in Morocco, not Spain.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester   2004-3-20 11:35:35 AM  

#9  Mike, I am sorry but yours is a seriously dangerous and vacuous argument. If the Madrid bombers hadnt committed some fairly minor crimes, are you arguing that nothing should have been done to stop them?

The reality is that AQ and its other manifestations hasnt yet reached the level of sophistication of the IRA where the minor law breakers were firewalled from the hard boyz who did the bombing and shooting. But AQ etc will figure it out!
Posted by: phil_b   2004-3-20 10:20:55 AM  

#8  I think this is a major flaw in our current law enforcement systems, like CIA and FBI. They value collecting information more than they do using the information to accomplish its intended purpose....law enforcement.

Sort of like when good citizens call law enforcement and ask them to clear their previously quiet and happy neighborhoods from a new group of drug dealers who recently moved in. Rather than just doing a few sweeps to rid the neighborhood of the culprits, the FBI steps in and decides they want to go after the big fishes, with the idea that the little fishes aren't worth their time.

So, instead of cleaning up the street, they allow the drug dealing to continue for years as they pursue their investigation. Meantime, the street gets worse, more kids get hooked, law abiding citizens leave the neighborhood, and the drug networks firmly entrench themselves with a complex network.

All the while, the FBI watches, and waits, going after bigger and bigger fishes. But by the time they finally bust anyone worthwhile, the neighborhood is so "hooked" into the drug world, the removal of one king pin just doesn't matter anymore. The neighborhood was long since lost.

That, IMHO, is what went wrong in the fight against the terrorist networks.
Posted by: B   2004-3-20 10:08:26 AM  

#7  Deport them? Where, to Morocco? What did the Moroccans do to deserve that? Would you feel comfortable deporting Atta if we had arrested him prior to his little caper?
Posted by: virginian   2004-3-20 7:59:10 AM  

#6  The Spanish government did not even have to try and convict these illegal immigrants of selling stolen cellphones. The Spanish government knew who they were and simply could have deported the illegal residents without proving anything else at all. The wiretapping and surveillance of the legal residents could have continued without being exposed.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester   2004-3-20 6:22:55 AM  

#5  
Re #3 "... the human rights fuckwits would have ... kicked up a ... fuss ..."

The possible silver lining on the dark cloud of the Socialists' election victory is that if a Socialist government decides that Spain ought to enforce its laws against Moslem illegal immigrants, then there won't be much fuss of that kind."
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester   2004-3-20 6:15:31 AM  

#4  
Re #2 ... as the UK found when dealing with the IRA ...

Illegal immigrants may be deported without much ado. As the USA found after September 11, hundreds of illegal Moslem immigrants may be deported in a few weeks with minimal legal proceedings if there is a will to do it.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester   2004-3-20 6:10:36 AM  

#3  bet even if the spaniards had nabbed em a year before the human rights fuckwits would have demanded his release and kicked up an out of proportion fuss over it
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K   2004-3-20 4:51:48 AM  

#2  Mike, as the UK found when dealing with the IRA and the US when dealing with organized crime you need special laws and enforcement capabilities. Relying on the normal legal mechamisms is going to result in too many corpses. Relying on terrorists to break unrelated laws in order to stop them is just unacceptable.
Posted by: phil_b   2004-3-20 4:36:44 AM  

#1  In other words, for allahs (please note the the NON CAPITILIZATION)sake we MUST not infringe upon the right of the "nappie head" muslim to conduct in private activities and/or planning operations (which by the way we know about) which are designed to "exterminate" ""HITLERS"" term the unbelivers!! EXCUSE ME! You do not want to know what I think of your Allah or you. You WILL NOT do you understand NOT prevail you are a bunch of baby killers and are inept at interperiting your koran (note the lower case! because that is what you are: Lower case) You have absoutly no concept of Muhamads writings. Go back to kindergatten and maybe, just maybe you will get a "light in your eye" but I doubt it. You poor mis-educated individuals TAKE YOUR WRATH OUT ON YOUR F$&%ING TEACHERS not the inocents. Get a life ITS WORTH LIVING!!!!
Posted by: Barry   2004-3-20 2:03:43 AM  

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