MADRID, 18 September 2003 — A Spanish judge yesterday indicted Osama Bin Laden and 34 others on charges of terrorism, including for the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
In a nearly 700-page document, investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzon issued international arrest warrants for Bin Laden, leader of the Al-Qaeda terror network, and 12 others. The whereabouts of 16 of the 35 suspects are not known.
Garzon ratified jailing orders for 11 men already in prison in Spain.
Ten of the 35 are accused of participating in Sept. 11, including two men in Spain. The other suspects are charged with belonging to a terrorist organization, illegal weapons possession, tax fraud, forgery and other crimes.
Six others, believed to be in Spain, were also indicted but will remain free on bail, according to the order obtained by The Associated Press yesterday.
Garzon argues that he can go after Bin Laden — the world’s most wanted fugitive — and other Al-Qaeda leaders because some of the planning for Sept. 11 took place in Spain.
He also said terrorism is one of the crimes included in Spain’s universal justice legislation, under which some offenses, like crimes against humanity, can be tried in Spain even if they were committed elsewhere. Garzon has used this law to try to prosecute abuses under military rule in Chile and Argentina, for instance.
But he added that his warrants and indictments this time are not so much aimed at putting Bin Laden on trial in Spain as preventing him and other suspects from escaping justice altogether if and when they are caught.
“When this happens, that will be the time to establish priority of jurisdiction,” Garzon wrote. He also said that at least one Spaniard died in the attack on the World Trade Center in New York.
The list of indicted suspects includes Tayssir Alouni, the Al-Jazeera journalist arrested Sept. 8 in Spain, and Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, who was accused of leading an Al-Qaeda cell in Spain and arrested in Madrid in November 2001.
Also indicted is Ramzi Binalshibh, another core leader of the Hamburg cell that helped prepare the attacks. He was arrested in Pakistan in September of last year.
