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Africa North
Judge quizzes Madrid attack suspect in Morocco
2006-04-25
The judge in charge of the inquiry into the Madrid train bombings travelled to Morocco to interrogate a suspect in the case. Judge Juan del Olmo went to a jail in Salé, a city near the capital Rabat, to question Mimoun Belhadj.
"Rodrigo! My number three, no, number four truncheon, por favor. Perhaps even the number five. After all, we *are* in Morocco."
Belhadj is the brother of one of the 29 men accused of the rush-hour bomb attacks in which 191 people died and more than 1,700 were injured in March 2004. The unusual move was made with the cooperation of the Moroccan authorities.
"Yes, effendi, the soundproofing is quite adequate here."
Del Olmo, along with a number of Moroccan judges, interrogated Belhadj as part of an international tribunal. Belhadj is currently serving two years in jail after being convicted of terrorist offences. He was extradited from Syria. He is the brother of Youssef Belhadj, who was extradited from Belgium to face charges in Spain relating to the Madrid bomb attacks carried out by Islamic extremists. Spanish police have been hunting both brothers, who are allegedly members of the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group (GICM), which was said to have been involved in the Madrid bombings. They allegedly fled to Belgium after the attacks. Del Olmo is also due to travel to France to interrogate another suspect in the case.
Posted by:Seafarious

#2  Yes, JFM, that would be much appreciated, as you're always very interesting and well-thought on such matters (sucking noise).
Posted by: anonymous5089   2006-04-25 10:14  

#1  He would be better to stay in Spain and investigate the suspicious activities of Spanish police.

Let's recall that it was the discovery of both an unexploded bomb and a van with islamic propaganda who allowed Zapatero to present the bombings as retaliation for Spanish involvement in Irak and thus turn around a certain defeat into victory.

So let's see:

1) The cops who first entered the van ahev declared that the van was empty. A sniffer dog failed to find explosives. But after that van was moved to the siege of the anti-terrorist unit there were found not less than 100 incriminating objects including tapes of entry level teaching of Coran (I thought those guys knew it from memory) and explosives.

2) The unexploded bomb was in fact unwired to the cell phone. That cell phone had a card who led the police to the suspects (before the elections). Small problem: it was not only unwired but contained nails and other shrapnel-like material when no victim had sharpanel wounds.

3) The police didn't analyze the wagons to determine what kind of explosives were used. Now that was found in both the van and the unexploded bomb was goma-2 (a kind of dynamite) who when cutting metal lets "barbs" on it while the metal of the wagons had no barbs who points to use of military explosives like C4. But as I said the police didn't analyze the wagons.

3) Between the ten suspects not less than nine were police confidents, one of them was even a former cop (a Syrain who married a Spanish woman) and must have been very good at their job of being a covert cell because they lived in defintely unislamic ways or had their childeen congratulate them for St-Joseph (the Catholic Father's day). Also most of them had their phones tapped but surveillance on them stopped just a couple days before the bombings

4) The socialist governement is pressuring the judge intio closing the investigation.

There are many more "black holes" in the investigation but have presently no time to tell all (if you can read Spanish go to http://libertaddigital.com), one of those days I will post a complete summary about the suspicious things in the investigation.
Posted by: JFM   2006-04-25 09:49  

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