Mourner accuses Aznar at Madrid mass funeral

World leaders dressed in black joined Spanish royalty and families of the 190 victims of Madrid’s train bombings at a state funeral today, honouring those killed in the nation’s worst terrorist attack.

On a cold, overcast day, King Juan Carlos and the rest of the royal family joined Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, French President Jacques Chirac and more than a dozen other heads of state or government in the packed, 19th-century Almudena Cathedral for the Mass.

“We have cried, and we have cried together,” Spanish Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela told the congregation.

The royal family sat up front, with the Spansh government and other politicians immediately behind, including Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and his successor, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Foreign dignitaries sat on the left side of the aisle among the 1,500-strong congregation.

The organist played the Spanish national anthem as the king and his family entered the cathedral. Incense filled the air.

“Great pain has filled your lives and those of your families since that black day in which brutal terrorist violence, planned and executed with unspeakable cruelty, ended the lives of your most beloved,” Rouco Varela said.

“From the very first moment – that of the anguished search and the inevitable identification of your loved ones – your pain became the pain of our dear city of Madrid, of Spain, and very quickly, of the whole world,” he added.

Before the Mass began, one unidentified man in the congregation shouted: “Mr Aznar, I hold you responsible for the death of my son!”

Many Spaniards have accused Aznar of provoking the bombings by supporting the US-led war in Iraq, and his party lost the national election three days after the attacks to Zapatero’s Socialists.

Zapatero has pledged to withdraw the estimated 1,300 Spanish troops now serving along other international forces in Iraq unless the United Nations takes control of the operations.

The newspaper El Pais reported that he intends to add to Spain’s 125 troops in Afghanistan to offset criticism of his decision to withdraw from Iraq.

During the service, Spain’s Queen Sofia wiped away tears, and the king held a handkerchief to his face. In the congregation, one woman broke down in sobs, shaking with grief as a male companion put his arm around her.

As the Mass ended, the king and queen and members of the royal family went from row to row, clasping the hands of the bereaved or kissing them on the cheek. One of the king’s two daughters, Princess Cristina, cried openly as she hugged mourners.

Neither Aznar nor anyone in his government went to see grieving relatives.

Spanish national television broadcast the service, along with an on-screen list of the names of all 190 bombing victims.

Giant-screen TVs were set up in a cobblestone courtyard outside the cathedral, in a Royal Palace garden, and in Puerta del Sol, a bustling plaza where one of several makeshift memorials to the victims sprang up the day after the bombings.

Spaniards have suffered from terrorism before – militant Basque separatists have launched attacks for decades, with the highest death toll being 21 in 1987.

But the March 11 rail attacks, in which Islamic extremists are the prime suspects, have dwarfed that figure. Besides the dead, more than 1,800 people were injured when 10 bombs concealed in backpacks ripped through four crowded commuter trains during the morning rush hour.

The cathedral was cordoned off for a radius of 500 yards. Police also stepped up security at Madrid’s two airports, roads leading into the city and along the motorcade route to the cathedral.

Relatives of the victims began arriving more than 90 minutes before the ceremony, with each family allotted 10 seats.

The magnitude of the national trauma prompted the first state funeral for people outside the royal family in the history of Spain’s new democracy, restored after long-time dictator General Francisco Franco died in 1975.

The last state funeral was held in 2000 for the king’s mother, Mercedes de la Merced.

The attacks were the worst to target a Western country since the suicide airliner attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. The deadliest since then was the bombing of two nightclubs in Bali, Indonesia, which was blamed on an al-Qaida-linked group and killed 202 people.

Suspicion for the train bombings has focused on an alleged Morocco-based terrorist cell believed to have links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network and on al-Qaida itself.

Spanish police have identified five of eight people they suspect carried out the Madrid bombings, including the alleged cell leader, reports said today.

Newspaper El Mundo said police had issued arrest orders for three of the five while the other two – thought to be Jamal Zougam and Abderrahim Zbakh – are already jailed on charges of mass murder.

The Periodico de Catalunya newspaper said Zougam’s fingerprints were found in a confiscated van that was discovered just hours after the bombings near a train station outside Madrid.

Detonators and a cassette tape of verses from the Koran were found in the van.

Police have arrested 15 suspects in connection with the bombings – 11 Moroccans, two Indians, one Algerian and a Spaniard. Thirteen remain in custody, of whom nine have been charged and jailed pending further investigation. One Moroccan and the Algerian have been released.