Suspected al-Qaida cell leader jailed over 9/11 plot
Imad Yarkas, one of 24 defendants on trial, was sentenced to 27 years in prison of conspiracy and being a leader of a terrorist organisation. Prosecutors had accused Yarkas, a 42-year-old Spaniard of Syrian origin, of the more serious charge of being an accomplice to murder and requested a jail term of nearly 75,000 years 25 years for each of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the suicide airliner attacks in 2001.
Two other suspects were acquitted of charges of helping plot the attacks, although one of them was found guilty of collaborating with a terrorist organisation. Twenty-one others also stood trial, but on charges not directly related to September 11. Of those, 16 were convicted of belonging to or collaborating with a terrorist organisation.
One of the 16 was Tayssir Alouny, a correspondent for the pan-Arab TV network Al-Jazeera. He was convicted of collaboration and sentenced to seven years in jail.
Al-Jazeera condemned Alouny's verdict.
"It was a black day in the history of the Spanish justice," Al-Jazeera news editor Ahmed al-Sheik said.
"We were all shocked because everyone expected Alouny to be freed. It is a regrettable event in the history of international journalism when a journalist who sought the truth becomes the accused."
Those convicted have 10 days to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.
Yarkas' attorney, Jacobo Teijelo, said he is considering not doing so, arguing that the conviction was a "farce" based on flimsy evidence but that another trial would be futile.
Yarkas had been charged with arranging a meeting in the Tarragona region of Spain in July 2001 at which key September 11 plotters alleged suicide pilot
Mohamed Atta and plot coordinator Ramzi Binalshibh met to decide last-minute details, including the date of the massacre.
Another suspect, Moroccan Driss Chebli, also was alleged to have helped set up the meeting.
He was acquitted of murder charges but convicted of collaborating with a terrorist group and sentenced to six years.
The third suspect facing 9/11 charges, Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun, was acquitted. The Syrian-born Spaniard was indicted over a video he shot of the World Trade Centre and other landmarks during a trip to several US cities in 1997.
