Three deny any role in Madrid bombings

Three men charged with placing backpack bombs on rush-hour commuter trains in the Madrid terror attacks of 2004 today denied any role in the massacre.

The denials came on day three of the trial of 29 people over the massacre that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800.

One of the three alleged bombers insisted his mother could vouch for him, saying he was in bed asleep when the bombs went off and she had made him breakfast that morning of March 11, 2004.

Another said he was at a restaurant miles away when the trains blew up. Another acknowledged having been friends with a Tunisian named as a radical Islamic thinker behind the attacks and with other alleged ringleaders who committed suicide to avoid arrest three weeks after the attacks, but denied taking part in them.

The first testimony of the day came from Jamal Zougam, a Moroccan who ran the shop where most of the mobile phone cards used to set off the bombs were sold. He asserted he had been implicated in the case as punishment for having refused to be a police informant.

The trial in Europe’s worst Islamic-linked terror attack is expected to last at least five months.