Moroccan brothers jailed over terror link

A judge today jailed two Moroccan brothers on provisional charges of collaborating with a terrorist group in connection with the deadly Madrid train bombings last year, but ordered their parents to be released.

The family, which was detained on Tuesday, was questioned overnight by Judge Juan del Olmo, who is handling the probe into the March 11 bombings that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500.

The brothers, Brahim and Mohamed Mousatten, are known to have had regular contacts with their maternal uncle, Youssef Belhadj, 28, who authorities believe is an al Qaida figure mentioned in a video claiming responsibility for the attacks.

Belhadj was detained on Tuesday in Belgium on an arrest warrant issued by Spain.

Belhadj visited Madrid a month before the attacks and stayed with his nephews. He left the Spanish capital hurriedly just before March 11, it is claimed.

An un-named court official said a fugitive in the case, Mohamed Afalah, asked the two brothers how to reach Belhadj after seven train bombing suspects blew themselves up on April 3 in the Madrid district of Leganes, as police moved in to arrest them.

Belhadj had close ties with the Leganes seven, the official said. He was arrested in Belgium in March 2004 on suspicion of belonging to a Moroccan extremist group blamed for the Casablanca attacks of 2003, but later released.

On Monday, del Olmo is to question two other March 11 suspects arrested this week.

Rachid Mohamed Kaddur, a 35-year-old Spaniard, was arrested on Thursday night in Melilla, one of two Spanish enclaves on the coast of Morocco.

Rachid Bendouda was arrested on Wednesday in the Madrid neighbourhood of Lavapies. Both are believed to have met with key bombing suspect Abdennabi Kounjaa the day before the attacks.

Kounjaa was one of seven who committed suicide in Leganes.

Twenty-two suspects have been jailed over the March 11 attacks. More than 40 other people have been arrested and later freed, but are still considered suspects and remain under court supervision.

Spain’s then-ruling conservatives lost to the Socialists in general elections of March 14.

Many voters accused the government of making Spain a target for al-Qaida by backing the war in Iraq and of lying to save the election by insisting Basque separatists were behind the train bombings in Madrid, even as evidence of an Islamic link mounted.

The Socialists abided by a campaign pledge and withdrew Spain’s 1,300 troops from Iraq shortly after taking office.