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Moroccan convicted of links to Madrid bombings

04 Dec 2008 19:47:51 GMT
Source: Reuters

RABAT, Dec 4 (Reuters) - A Moroccan court convicted a drug trafficker on Thursday of links to the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people, Moroccan state news agency MAP reported.

Hicham Ahmidan, already serving a five-year prison sentence for international drug trafficking, was charged with links to the group that carried out the attacks in the Spanish capital and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, MAP said.

Prosecutors said Ahmidan helped provide equipment used in the bombings. His lawyer Ali Ammar said he denied the charges and planned to appeal.

Ammar said some of the bomb plotters were Ahmidan's cousins but his client knew nothing of their plans and was in another country when the attacks took place.

The conviction was unlawful, Ammar said, because Ahmidan had been acquitted of similar charges.

The 10 bombs, packed into sports bags and detonated by mobile phones, tore through packed commuter trains on the morning of March 11, 2004, throwing bodies onto the tracks.

Three weeks later, seven men, including two suspected ringleaders of the bombings, blew themselves up in an apartment after police closed in on them.

Following a lengthy trial, a Spanish court last year sentenced two Moroccans and a Spaniard to 42,924 years in jail after they were convicted on multiple counts.

The high nominal sentences reflected convictinos on multiple counts but the figures are academic as Spanish law says nobody can serve more than 40 years in jail.

Another Moroccan, Abdelilah Hriz, was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison but a Moroccan judge acquitted him in May 2007 for lack of evidence.

In February, Moroccan authorities detained Ahriz again after Spanish authorities produced new evidence which they said linked him to the attacks.

A judge at the court near the Moroccan capital Rabat adjourned Ahriz's hearing on Thursday until Dec. 18, MAP said. (Reporting by Tom Pfeiffer; editing by Michael Roddy)

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