Four Madrid bomb convicts cleared

A Spanish court yesterday cleared four of the 21 people charged for crimes related to the 2004 Madrid train bombings, Europe's deadliest Islamist attack.

The court overturned an October 31, 2007 ruling, which found three of the men guilty of being members of the radical Islamist cell that carried out the March 11 bombings that killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800.

A fourth man was cleared of trafficking explosives.

Basel Ghalyoun, Mouhannad Almallah Dabas and Abdelilah Fadual El Akil were acquitted of belonging to a terrorist or armed group. All three are from Middle East countries Raul Gonzalez, a Spaniard, was acquitted of supplying explosives.

The court also upheld the acquittal of "Mohamed the Egyptian", Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, who was accused of being one of the masterminds behind the bombings.

The initial reaction of victims groups was to put a brave face on the decision, which also reduced the sentences of five men by between one and three years.

"These are technical changes that don't change the nature of the attack and the basis of the sentence," said José Maria Fuster Fabra, a lawyer for one victims group.

"This decision upholds the points we have defended from the beginning."

The initial October ruling also cleared three men of masterminding the attack and acquitted seven others.

Included in yesterday's appeal ruling was a decision to sentence Antonio Toro of Spain to four years imprisonment for trafficking explosives.

That took the total number of those found guilty of the attack to 18, compared with the original 21.

Many victims were shocked by the original sentences, which in many cases were much lower than the state attorney had requested, and angry at the acquittals. Three men - two Moroccans and a Spaniard who provided the bombers with explosives - were handed down sentences which may keep them in prison for 40 years, the maximum in Spanish law.

Ten bombs packed into sports bags and detonated by mobile phones tore through the trains in 2004, leaving the tracks strewn with bodies.

Three weeks later, seven men including two suspected ringleaders of the train bombings blew themselves up in a suburban apartment after police closed in on them. The explosives were the same as those used in the March 11 attack.

The court laid most of the charges at the feet of three men sentenced to thousands of years in prison.

The magistrate who investigated the bombings said the attack was inspired by, but not directed by, al Qaeda.

Spanish courts have said there was no proof Basque separatist rebels ETA had anything to do with the train bombs, despite some media and victims' support groups still insisting there must be some link to them.

The conservative government in power in March 2004 at first pinned the attack on ETA but, as more evidence piled up to show it was the work of an Islamist cell, Spain turned against its leaders and voted them out of power three days later.