Spanish miner may have trained Madrid bombers

A Spanish miner is believed to have trained the Madrid train bombers how to use explosives, security forces have said.

In a court document sent to the parliamentary commission investigating the March 11 attacks, Emilio Suarez Trashorras is said to have had numerous encounters with some of the Islamic militant suspects in the bombings.

He is thought by Spain’s paramilitary Civil Guard to have been the only person with experience in the use of explosives at a mine in the northern Asturias region from which the explosives believed to have been used in the attacks were stolen.

Suarez Trashorras, who has a criminal record for possession of drugs and weapons and was a police informant, is currently in jail on charges of supplying the dynamite used in the bombings.

“It’s possible that Emilo Suarez Trashorras provided the terrorists the necessary training to manipulate and use the detonators and the Goma 2 (dynamite),” the Civil Guard report said.

In a telephone call intercepted by the Civil Guard in December 2003, Moroccan Jamal Ahmidal, who is suspected of buying the explosives used in the attacks, told Suarez Trashorras that a detonator exploded in his hand while he was trying it out, the document says.

The Islamic militants blamed for the attacks are believed to have obtained the explosives in exchange for money and hashish, and allegedly said they wanted it for mining in Morocco.

The March 11 bombings killed 191 people and injured more than 2,000 in Spain’s worst terrorist attack.