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Italy convicts Egyptian linked to Madrid bombings

06 Nov 2006 18:04:47 GMT
Source: Reuters

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Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed of Egypt stand at a Milan court November 6, 2006. An Italian court on Monday sentenced Ahmed, accused of being one of the masterminds of the 2004 Madrid bombings, to 10 years in prison for terrorist association. Ahmed, also known as "Mohamed the Egyptian", was arrested in Milan three months after the March 11, 2004 blasts that killed 191 people and wounded 2,000 others.
REUTERS/STRINGER/ITALY

(Adds judge quote, paragraph 9)

By Ilaria Polleschi

MILAN, Nov 6 (Reuters) - An Italian court on Monday sentenced an Egyptian accused of being one of the masterminds of the 2004 Madrid train bombings to 10 years in prison for belonging to an international terrorist network.

Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, also known as "Mohamed the Egyptian", was arrested in Milan three months after the March 11, 2004 blasts that killed 191 people and wounded 2,000 others.

He is the first suspected Madrid plotter to be convicted following the attacks.

"I'm ready to be convicted because we're in Italy. This is a political case against Islam," Ahmed said before his sentence was read, according to Italian media.

His lawyer, Luca D'Auria, told Reuters he would appeal against the verdict, but expected his client to be extradited to Spain to join a larger trial against 29 suspects starting in February.

Spain's public prosecutor set out her case against the March 11 bombers and accomplices on Monday, calling for them to serve a total of more than 270,000 years in prison.

Italian prosecutors say Ahmed had close ties to the Madrid bombers and bragged in recorded conversations about how the rush-hour explosions on packed commuter trains were his idea.

But the head of the Milan court said prosecutors did not need the Madrid evidence to convict Ahmed.

"Rabei was not tried for involvement in the Madrid attacks but just on the base of circumstantial events in Italy," said the chief judge, Luigi Cerqua, after the sentence was read out.

Prosecutors also accused Ahmed of grooming young recruits, including one named Yahia Mouad Mohamed Rayah, who was sentenced to 5 years in prison on Monday on terrorism charges.

VIDEO TAPE

Italian prosecutors also pointed to recordings in which Ahmed advocated jihad and cheered the execution of American hostage Nick Berg in Iraq.

"Together with Yahia, his disciple, he watched a video tape of Berg's execution and made comments referring to jihad and martyrdom," Bruno Megale, a Milan anti-terrorist investigator, had told court proceedings earlier in the year.

Ahmed was not in Spain during the attacks. He arrived in Italy the previous December and had been working at odd jobs, including as a house painter, before his arrest.

Megale says Spanish police stumbled upon Ahmed when they found a copy of his Italian cell phone number during a probe into the chief suspects in Madrid. Italian police began taping Ahmed's conversations in April 2004.

Judicial sources have said Ahmed was trained as an explosives expert in the Egyptian army, but D'Auria said Ahmed only worked in an army office. He had argued that the case should have been tried in Spain -- not Italy.

"He will certainly be extradited now, maybe in a week, a month, two months," D'Auria said. A Spanish court will try 29 suspects starting in February on charges ranging from terrorist killings and attempted murder to lesser crimes like forging documents. Seven of the other main suspects died when they blew their apartment up weeks after the attack while another four escaped.

In a 336-page argument, Spanish prosecutor Olga Sanchez said the bombings were inspired by a video broadcast on Al Jazeera in Oct. 2003 in which Osama bin Laden called for attacks on Western countries including Spain.

She called 134 witnesses and reiterated that the bombings had no link to Basque separatists ETA although some media and politicians have kept trying to make a connection.

The then ruling Partido Popular blamed ETA for the blasts, which came three days before national elections. But as more evidence pointed towards a radical Islamist plot, Spaniards turned on the government and voted it out of office.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Rome and Jane Barrett in Madrid)

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Last updated:Mon Nov 6 18:07:14 2006