Accused denies claiming Madrid bombings

An Egyptian accused of being a mastermind of the Madrid train bombings today denied that his voice is the one heard in a wiretapped telephone conversation.

Spanish prosecutors say he claimed the Madrid attacks were his idea.

“That voice is not mine. I’m not the person speaking,” Rabei Osman said of the recordings as he took the stand for the second time in the trial over the March 2004 attacks, which killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800.

Italian police arrested Osman in Milan, Italy, in June 2004, acting on a tip from their Spanish counterparts. Italian prosecutors say that in a series of wiretapped conversations Mr Osman tells an associate in Italy: “I’m the thread to Madrid; it’s my work.”

Mr Osman told the three-panel judge overseeing the trial that the official translations of those Arabic-language conversations were inaccurate. He said there was no mention of anyone claiming the Madrid attack at any moment of the discussion between two men heard in the conversations.

“The translations are 80 per cent faulty,” Mr Osman said under questioning from his defence lawyer.

Mr Osman and his lawyer obtained permission from the court to listen to the tapes with translators last week in order to prepare for questioning. The tapes were not played in court.

“I never said something like this. I condemn this terrorist action, and I’m against it in all its forms,” he said. “I never had any relation to the events which occurred in Madrid.”

The trial of 29 suspects in the case began on February 15 and is expected to last at least five months.