Key suspect in Madrid bombings returned to Italy

Spanish authorities have ended their interrogation of an Egyptian suspect in last year’s Madrid train bombings and will send him back to Italy where he is accused of links to militant Muslim groups, court officials said today.

Spanish Judge Juan del Olmo has filed provisional charges of mass murder and terrorism against the suspect, Rabei Osman Ahmed, who was handed over by Italy in December for a maximum of six months.

His return to Italy was scheduled for today, an official close to the case said.

The bombings killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500 and were claimed by militants who said they had acted on behalf of al Qaida to avenge the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq.

Osman Ahmed, 27, was arrested in Milan in June after police wiretapped conversations in which he allegedly boasted he was the mastermind of the Madrid bombings and was planning another attack.

In an arrest warrant issued in June, del Olmo said that while living in Madrid the Egyptian “managed to take control of a small group of Arab followers, all of them with extremist Islamic ideology, supporters of jihad and Osama bin Laden.”

Spanish authorities say the Egyptian, considered an expert in explosives, was a key figure in the planning of the bombings and in the structure of al-Qaida in Europe.

National Court officials said his possible return to Spain would depend on what legal proceedings Italy took against him.