Accused Madrid bomb mastermind acquitted (7 acquitted out of 28)

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

Accused Madrid bomb mastermind acquitted By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer
1 minute ago



MADRID, Spain - One of the accused masterminds of the 2004 Madrid terror bombings was acquitted of all charges Wednesday by a Spanish court in the culmination to a politically divisive trial over Europe's worst Islamic militant terror attack.


Rabei Osman, a 35-year-old Egyptian, allegedly bragged during a wiretapped phone conversation that the attacks, which killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800, were his idea. Twenty-eight people were charged in the attacks.

Four lead defendants in the bombings were found guilty of murder and other charges, each handed sentences that stretched into the thousands of years in the day of carnage etched in Spain's collective memory and known simply as 11-M, much like the term 9-11 in the U.S.

Fourteen other people were found guilty of lesser charges such as belonging to a terrorist group. Seven other lesser suspects were acquitted on all charges.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071031/ap_on_re_eu/spain_terror_trial

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Judge finds 21 guilty of Madrid bombings
MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish judge on Wednesday found 21 people guilty of involvement in the 2004 Islamist bombings of Madrid trains which killed 191 people in Europe's deadliest al Qaeda inspired attack.


Seven of the 28 accused were acquitted of any involvement in the bombings including Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, known as "Mohamed the Egyptian" and already jailed in Italy after he was convicted of belonging to an international terrorist group.

Moroccan Jamal Zougam was sentenced to a total of more than 40,000 years in prison, although under Spanish law he can only serve a maximum of 40 years. Spaniard Emilio Suarez Trashorras, found guilty of supplying explosives, also received a sentence of thousands of years in jail.

Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez ruled out the participation of Basque guerrillas ETA in the March 11, 2004, bombings which also injured more than 1,800 people when 10 bombs packed into sports bags ripped through four commuter trains.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071031/wl_nm/spain_trial_dc;_ylt=AoJ71A6wdkOc8rijeZpUzCdm.3QA

[mogster]

1. Interesting

The same happened in the case of 'liquid bombs' last summer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6175427.stm

See also this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1913199&mesg_id=1913199

[erpowers]

2. CNN Headlines Giving Two Different Reports

When I first saw this post this morning I was surprised in that I had just been at the cnn.com website and saw a headline stating there had been guilty verdicts. Later, I turned to CNN (the news channel) and the reporters there were reporting guilty verdicts. I later realized that there had been both guilty and not guilty verdicts and that one of the major people in the case had been found not guilty.

[antiimperialist]

3. Why does the NY Times say "mastermind" acquitted in its headline?

If he's been acquitted then it means he was not the mastermind, or at least has not been proven to be it. They should say "accused mastermind". The body of the article does in fact accurately refers to him as "accused mastermind". It looks like the web editor did it.
It doesn't surprise me from the paper that brought us the bogus WMD/Saddam claims.

Go ASAP to the front page of the NY Times website and see for yourself.