Two more suspects have been charged in connection with the deadly Madrid commuter railroad bombings, authorities said.
Judge Juan del Olmo jailed Rafa Zuher and Naima Oulad Akcha on charges of collaborating with a terrorist group after questioning them separately for more than six hours, court officials said on Wednesday.
The two suspects, both Moroccans, were arrested last weekend. They denied the charges and condemned the March 11 bombings, court officials said.
Spanish authorities have arrested a total of 15 suspects in connection with the bombings -- 11 Moroccans, two Indians, one Algerian and a Spaniard. One of the Moroccans and the Algerian were released. Thirteen remain in custody, of whom 11 now have been charged.
The attacks killed 190 people and injured at least 1,800 others.
Five suspects have been charged with mass murder and belonging to a terrorist group and six have been charged with collaboration.
All but the two Indian suspects are being held in solitary confinement without access to lawyers or family. With the exception of the Spaniard, all of the charged have denied any involvement in the attacks.
The charges stop short of a formal indictment but suggest that the court has strong evidence against them. They can be jailed up to two years while investigators gather more evidence.
Akcha is the first woman arrested in the case. She is the sister of Khalid Oulad Akcha, who was jailed in a separate case but brought to Madrid under Del Olmo's orders.
Suspicion in the attacks has focused on an alleged Morocco-based terrorist cell believed to have links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and on al-Qaeda itself.
Investigators have analyzed a videotape in which a man claiming to speak on behalf of al-Qaeda said the group carried out the Madrid attack in reprisal for Spain's backing of the US-led war in Iraq.
The prime suspect in the bombings is Jamal Zougam, an immigrant from Morocco. Spanish court documents have linked him to members of an al-Qaeda cell in Spain.
Unconfirmed news reports on Wednesday said Spanish police had identified five of eight people they suspect carried out the attacks, including the alleged cell leader.
The Periodico de Catalunya daily newspaper said Zougam's fingerprints were found in a van that was discovered just hours after the bombings near a train station outside Madrid. Detonators and a cassette tape of verses from the Quran were found in the van.
The arrested Spaniard, Jose Emilio Suarez, has reportedly admitted having helped provide explosives to the Moroccans.
The Spanish royal family wept as they comforted row after row of mourners, clasping hands and kissing cheeks at Wednesday's state funeral for the 190 people killed in the attacks.
On a cold, overcast day, King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia and the rest of the royal family joined French President Jacques Chirac, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prince Charles, US Secretary of State Colin Powell and more than a dozen other heads of state or government in the 19th century Almudena Cathedral.
"We have cried, and we have cried together," Cardinal Antonio Rouco Varela, clad in purple vestments, told the congregation of about 1,500.
The attacks traumatized Spain so deeply that the government took the extraordinary step of holding a state funeral for people outside the royal family.
The organist played the Spanish national anthem as the royal family entered the granite cathedral in Madrid's old quarter. Later, incense wafted through the air as a choir clad in blue gowns sang mournful hymns.
The royal family sat up front during the Mass, with the Spanish government and other politicians immediately behind, including Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and his successor, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Foreign dignitaries sat on the left side of the aisle.
"Great pain has filled your lives and those of your families since that black day in which brutal terrorist violence, planned and executed with unspeakable cruelty, ended the lives of your most beloved," Rouco Varela said.
"From the very first moment -- that of the anguished search and the inevitable identification of your loved ones -- your pain became the pain of our dear city of Madrid, of Spain, and very quickly, of the whole world," he added.
Before the Mass began, one unidentified man in the congregation shouted, "Mr. Aznar, I hold you responsible for the death of my son!"
Neither Aznar nor anyone in his government went to see grieving relatives at the funeral.
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
EXTRADITION FEARS: The legislative changes come five years after a treaty was suspended in response to the territory’s crackdown on democracy advocates Exiled Hong Kong dissidents said they fear UK government plans to restart some extraditions with the territory could put them in greater danger, adding that Hong Kong authorities would use any pretext to pursue them. An amendment to UK extradition laws was passed on Tuesday. It came more than five years after the UK and several other countries suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong in response to a government crackdown on the democracy movement and its imposition of a National Security Law. The British Home Office said that the suspension of the treaty made all extraditions with Hong Kong impossible “even if
Former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, best known for making a statement apologizing over World War II, died yesterday aged 101, officials said. Murayama in 1995 expressed “deep remorse” over the country’s atrocities in Asia. The statement became a benchmark for Tokyo’s subsequent apologies over World War II. “Tomiichi Murayama, the father of Japanese politics, passed away today at 11:28am at a hospital in Oita City at the age of 101,” Social Democratic Party Chairwoman Mizuho Fukushima said. Party Secretary-General Hiroyuki Takano said he had been informed that the former prime minister died of old age. In the landmark statement in August 1995, Murayama said
RSS