Madrid train bombing suspects jailed

The judge investigating last year’s train bombings in Madrid has jailed five men suspected of having close ties to organisers of the attack and helping key suspects flee Spain, officials at the National Court in Madrid said today.

The men were arrested last week as part of two-pronged crackdown that also netted 11 suspects who allegedly belonged to a Syria-based network that recruited people for suicide attacks in Iraq. The 11 were still undergoing questioning at the court today.

The other five suspects, arrested last Tuesday in Madrid and Barcelona, were ordered jailed on suspicion of links to a terrorist organisation.

This stops short of a formal indictment but allows Judge Juan del Olmo to keep them in custody while he gathers more evidence in the March 11, 2004, bombings that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500.

The Interior Ministry said last week that the five men helped suspects flee Spain after the attack. It said one of those fugitives was Mohamed Afalah, a Moroccan who the ministry said eventually made his way to Syria and apparently staged a suicide attack in Iraq in May of this year.

The judge’s jailing order raised the number of people in prison over the train bombing to 31. About 70 others have been questioned and released, but are still considered suspects.

Militants claimed on a video message that they had carried out the attacks - which targeted 10 commuter trains with backpack bombs – and said they had acted on behalf of al Qaida in revenge for the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq.

Of the five jailed today, four were Moroccan. The Interior Ministry said the real identity of the fifth was not known.