Three Moroccans charged with Madrid massacre

Three Moroccans were today charged with the murder of 190 people in the the Madrid terror attacks

The closed-door sessions before National Court Judge Juan del Olmo were at times tumultuous, an official said.

Key Moroccan suspect Jamal Zougam, who has been linked with the al-Qaida terror group, wept, she said, and suspect Mohamed Bekkali arrived shouting: “I am innocent! I am innocent!”

The five suspects were brought individually with their court-appointed lawyers before Olmo in the hearings that began last night and lasted until almost dawn.

The court ruling, which stops short of a formal indictment, marked the first time authorities have publicly accused the three , who were arrested on March 13, of being directly involved in Spain’s deadliest terrorist attack.

Before today, they were accused only of falsifying mobile phone equipment.

The Moroccans were charged with 190 killings, 1,400 attempted killings, and membership in a terrorist group, the official said.

Although 202 people died from the March 11 bombings of Madrid commuter trains, the 190 relates to the number of bodies that have been identified.

Two Indians – Vinay Kohly and Suresh Kumar, also in custody since March 13 - were charged with collaborating with an armed group and falsifying a sales document while committing fraud, the court official said without elaborating.

The three Moroccans said they were in bed when the bombs went off and denied having anything to do with the attack.

The five, who had been kept in a holding cell in a police station, were sent to Soto del Real prison on Madrid’s northern outskirts today.

Mohamed Chaoui, the third Moroccan who was arrested March 13, told the judge that he had little relation with Zougam, his half brother whom he described as deeply religious.

Del Olmo’s decision to charge the five means they can be held for two years while investigators try to gather enough evidence to take them to trial.

After that period, the judge could order them held for two more years for further investigation or indict them and put them on trial. He could also release them if he decides there is insufficient evidence.

For the time being, he ordered them held incommunicado, barring contact with lawyers and family members.

El Pais newspaper reported today that police found, in the telephone services shop where Zougam and Bekkali worked, a piece of a mobile phone used in a backpack bomb left on a train March 11.

The bomb did not not explode and the phone was recovered and analysed.

The phone apparently had been set to connect to a detonator, a piece chipped off and that piece was found in the shop, the newspaper reported, citing police sources.

The death toll matches the Oct. 2002 Bali, Indonesia, nightclub terror bombing, making the two attacks the deadliest since the September 11, 2001, attacks killed nearly 3,000 in the US.

Another five suspects, reportedly including Mohamed Chedadi also of Morocco, were arrested yesterday. Chedadi is the brother of Said Chedadi, an alleged al-Qaida operative arrested in 2001.

One of the five holds a Spanish passport, and Moroccan officials said three others are Moroccan.

Ten suspects are in now custody. An Algerian picked up for questioning early this week – after speaking of a mass attack on Madrid back in January – was released today.

Moroccan police have rounded associates of Zougam for questioning.