Conspiracy still in the air as Spain marks bombings

THREE years on from the train bombings that killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800, Spain’s political and social wounds are still aching, and the country is torn by a host of conspiracy theories.

Yesterday the nation remembered the victims with a towering glass monument bearing messages of condolence written in the days after the attacks.

King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia and senior government officials presided over the ceremony outside the Atocha rail station, one of four targets in the string of 10 backpack bombs that ripped apart morning rush-hour commuter trains on March 11, 2004 —. Europe’s worst terrorist attack.

The monument unveiled at the short, sombre ceremony is an irregularly shaped, 35-foot-tall glass cylinder with a transparent inner membrane bearing messages of condolence that Spaniards left at Atocha station after the attacks — on notes left at makeshift memorials of flowers and candles, or on a computer set up for them to record their thoughts.

Meanwhile, those who refuse to believe the official version of events, that Islamic militants were behind the attack, point their fingers in several directions — at Spain’s own security forces, an attempted left-wing coup d’etat, and, most commonly, the Basque separatist group ETA. Anger still smoulders over the government’s initial blaming of ETA for the attack. It is seen as the main reason the conservative Popular Party was voted out of office in national elections three days after the attack.

Polls show about a third of Spaniards — many of them conservative voters — don’t believe the official version of events. The conspiracy theories are kept alive by Popular Party leaders and the country’s most influential right-wing newspaper, El Mundo, which has run a series of articles casting doubt on the government’s case.

The Popular Party still hammers away almost obsessively at the possibility of an ETA link. Were it established, it would absolve the party of the claim that it lied in the three grief-stricken days between the bombing and the election.

“It’s extraordinary how these conspiracy theories have survived, and if anything have expanded and contaminated people’s minds,” said Charles Powell, a political scientist at San Pablo-CEU University in Madrid. “One has to remember that the March 11 attacks were the first time a Spanish government has been brought down as a result of a terror attack... and that has proved extremely disconcerting, particularly to conservative voters.”