Spain bomb warning ‘was ignored’

SPANISH intelligence agents warned police last November that an Algerian who has been identified as a ringleader of the Madrid train bombings was preparing an attack, a newspaper claimed yesterday.

El Pais said the agents had asked the Interior Ministry for urgent help in locating the suspect, Allekema Lamari, who had served jail time in Spain on terrorism charges and was considered dangerous.

However, the report, which quoted sources close to Spain’s National Intelligence Centre, added that the ministry did not heed the warning.

“We knew he was preparing something big, but not his target or when, although signs were it would be in December 2003 or January of this year,” a source close to the centre said.

The Interior Ministry and Spanish police declined to comment on the report.

The March 11 bombings killed 191 people and have been blamed on Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida.

El Pais said that on March 6, five days before the Madrid train bombings, the intelligence centre issued a report to the then-conservative government warning that Lamari had vanished from Lavapies, a Madrid neighbourhood with a large Muslim population.

Five days after the attack, agents asked that Lamari’s photo be released to police nationwide, but the government did not act on this.