Police arrest three Madrid bombing suspects

Spanish police have arrested three Moroccans suspected of helping finance last year’s train bombings in Madrid and providing weapons today.

The arrests were made yesterday, two in Madrid and one in the southern city of Granada, police said.

The train bombings on March 11, 2004, killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500. So far 24 people have been jailed in the case, although around 70 others have been questioned and released but are still considered suspects.

The attacks were claimed in videos by militants who said they had acted on behalf of al Qaida as revenge for the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq.

Police said the three new suspects were suspected of trafficking in drugs and weapons and that a number of homes and stores were searched overnight Mondy as part of the probe that led to the arrests.

They were identified as Mourad Bhar, age 20; Abdelkhalak Chergui, 29; and Abdelhak Chergui, 32, the brother of the second detainee.

Police said in statement Bhar was a drug dealer who allegedly funnelled profits to the Madrid bombing cell and shared an apartment with two suspects in the attack right before and after the massacre.

Abdelkhalak Chergui had links to suspects including Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, an alleged ringleader who has been described as the cell’s ideologue. Officials say Fakhet was among seven suspects who blew themselves up in a suburban Madrid apartment on April 3, 2004 as special forces agents moved in to arrest them.

Chergui also dealt drugs and guns and allegedly supplied weapons to cell members, as well as money for the attacks, police said.

Chergui’s brother, who was arrested in Granada, was an electrical engineering student and his knowledge of this field may have been used to fashion mobile phones used as detonators for the 10 backpack bombs that exploded on the Madrid commuter network, police said.

Separately, National Court Judge Juan del Olmo, who is leading the probe into the deadly Madrid train bombings, has released two Moroccans accused of links with key bombing suspect Abdennabi Kounjaa the day before the attacks, court officials said today.

Rachid Bendouda and Rachid Mohamed Kaddur were both detained in February and were provisionally charged with collaboration with a terrorist group.

The judge did not give an explanation for his orders, but throughout the investigation he has released suspects from jail, saying that their apparent role in the attacks was not serious enough to keep them in custody.