A SUSPECTED al-Qaida cell leader was convicted yesterday of conspiring to commit murder in connection with the September 11 attacks in the United States, concluding Europe’s biggest trial of alleged members of the terrorist group.

A Syrian-born Spaniard alleged to be the financial mastermind of an al-Qaida cell that helped plot the September 11 attacks in the US in 2001 said today he had never given “a single peseta” toward a jihad, or holy war.

Twenty-four men will go on trial in Spain today as suspected members of an al-Qaida cell charged with using their new homeland as a staging ground for the September 11, 2001, attacks.