MADRID, 23 April 2005 — Twenty-four Al-Qaeda suspects went on trial behind an extraordinary security shield in Spain yesterday, three of them facing sentences of more than 60,000 years for allegedly helping to plot the Sept. 11, 2001 terror strikes on the United States.
More than 100 armed police with dogs were deployed at the specially-built courtroom in a park on the outskirts of Madrid, where the defendants appeared inside a bulletproof glass cubicle, as a helicopter circled overhead.
Europe’s largest ever trial of suspected Al-Qaeda members opened under the protection of a jamming system to prevent the use of a remote-controlled bomb.
Judge Angela Murillo Bordallo read out the charges to the defendants, who include the suspected leader of the Al-Qaeda network in Spain, Syrian Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, known as “Abu Dahdah”.
Prosecutors plan to demand that Yarkas and two others suspected of links to the Sept. 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people, each be sentenced to more than 60,000 years in prison — 25 years for each life lost.
Yarkas, 41, was linked to Sept. 11 after his telephone number was found at the home in Hamburg, Germany, of an Al-Qaeda member involved in the attacks.
A stocky man with thinning hair, Yarkas sat in the back row of the defendants’ chamber, smiling and greeting his co-accused. He was not due to face questioning until Tuesday.
The Syrian, who describes himself as a businessman, is accused of having run a recruitment network for young militants in Spain, who were allegedly sent for training in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and Indonesia.
Authorities also believe he was key in establishing the extremist networks later blamed for the March 11, 2004 train bombings in Madrid, which killed 191 people and injured almost 2,000.
The two others accused of direct involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks are the Moroccan Driss Chebli, 36, and Syrian-born Ghassub Al Abrash Ghaylun, 39.
Chebli allegedly organized a meeting in July 2001 on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, during which the details of the Sept. 11 attacks were finalized.
Ghaylun filmed the World Trade Center towers during a visit to the United States and allegedly gave the tapes to an Al-Qaeda operative.
During yesterday’s opening hearing, prosecutors questioned a first suspect, Jose Luis Galan, a Spanish convert to Islam who has insisted he is a “non-violent” Muslim and denies all links to Al-Qaeda.
Asked about a trip he made to Indonesia in July 2001, when he is suspected of having visited a militant contact, Galan insisted it was for purely personal reasons. “I had lost my job and wanted to study the possibility of settling in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world,” he said.
He dismissed prosecutors’ questions about weapons found at his home, saying: “I have a license for each one. I have always enjoyed shooting for sport.”
Concerning a photograph showing him dressed as a Mujahedin, weapon in hand, he explained: “In our family, we’ve always played at dressing up.”
Galan admitted having been in close contact with Yarkas through his local mosque, but said he had no knowledge of the militant recruitment operation the Syrian is accused of running.
Some 120 journalists from about a dozen countries were covering the trial, which is expected to last two months.
The 24 people in court yesterday are among a group of 41 people, including Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, indicted by Spanish anti-terrorist judge Baltasar Garzon.
Under Spanish law defendants cannot be tried in absentia.
Tayssir Alluni, a Spanish resident and journalist of the Qatari Arabic language television channel Al-Jazeera, was also among the defendants in court.
Alluni, who obtained an interview with Bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, is accused of being an Al-Qaeda member and of having had “close links for many years” with Yarkas.
Alluni denies the allegations and has questioned the impartiality of the Spanish judiciary, saying he was “very pessimistic about the trial”.
The Arab Commission for Human Rights (ACHR) has sent 12 observers, drawn from seven Arab and non-Arab countries, to report on the trial for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, with a special focus on Alluni’s case.
“There are a lot of weak points in the Alluni dossier,” said ACHR spokesman Haytham Manna.
British ‘Shoe Bomber’ Gets 13 Years
A British man, said in court to have been an accomplice of jailed shoe bomber Richard Reid, was sentenced to 13 years at London’s Old Bailey criminal court yesterday.
The court found 25-year-old Saajid Badat guilty of conspiring with Reid and a Belgian terrorist to blow up a passenger plane.
Badat pleaded guilty to the plot to blow up the transatlantic passenger plane on its way to the United States.
The judge said Badat could have been jailed for 50 years if he had not withdrawn from the plot.
The case is the first successful prosecution in Britain since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.
The court was told that Badat had an identical device to the one Reid tried to use on a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001.
Reid was sentenced to life in prison for the crime in the US in 2003.
The court heard that Badat changed his mind and dismantled his device, which was specially designed to evade airport security.
