Teenager faces first trial for Madrid terror bombing

The first trial in connection with the Madrid terror bombing was due to begin today with prosecutors laying out their case against a Spanish teenager accused of helping transport dynamite used in the attack.

The prosecutor is seeking an eight-year prison term followed by five years of probation for the 16-year-old.

The trial is scheduled to last three days at the National Court in the Spanish capital, but it is not clear if a verdict will come right away.

Spanish law bars the boy’s name from being published.

Prosecutors say the youth collaborated with a gang that sold drugs and explosives in northern Spain who sold the dynamite used in the backpack bombs planted on four trains on March 11.

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

In exchange for cash, the teenager allegedly took a Madrid-bound bus from the northern city of Oviedo and carried with him a gym bag sealed with a padlock and containing 33 to 44 pounds of dynamite stolen from a mine.

He is then said to have delivered it to a Moroccan named Jamal Ahmidam, the alleged buyer of the dynamite.

Authorities say that, altogether, an estimated 440 pounds of dynamite exploded on the trains.

The boy has been charged with possessing explosives for purposes of terrorism. He has said he did not know what was in the gym bag.

Ahmidam was one of seven suspects in the attacks who blew themselves up in an apartment outside Madrid on April 3 as police prepared to arrest them.

Sixteen adults have been jailed over the March 11 attacks on preliminary charges of terrorism or mass murder. But this stops short of a formal indictment.

The teenager is being brought to trial quickly because under Spanish law a juvenile suspect cannot be held for more than six months without being tried.