Photo taken 11 March 2004 of firefighters extricating bodies from one of the trains
Anti-terrorist court delivers verdicts in Madrid bombings trial
MADRID (AFP) — Spain's anti-terrorist court met Wednesday amid tight security to announce verdicts against 28 suspects in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed almost 200 people and were claimed in the name of Al-Qaeda.
The early morning bombings on four packed commuter trains were the deadliest terror attacks in the West since the September 11, 2001 strikes against the United States.
The three judges met at 8:10am (0910 GMT) and handed a copy of the verdicts to the president of the National Audience -- Spain's top court for investigating and judging terrorism cases.
After three months of deliberations, chief Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez is to read the verdicts and sentences at around 11:00 am (1000 GMT). The announcements will be carried live on Spanish television.
Dozens of armed police with bullet-proof vests surrounded the court, located at the entrance to a park in the west of the capital, as a helicopter hovered overhead.
An armoured car with a machine gun was also parked outside the building, where journalists and television broadcast vehicles had been stationed since early in the morning.
A string of 10 bombs exploded on commuter trains on March 11, 2004, leaving bodies and limbs scattered on railway tracks. A total of 191 people from 13 countries were killed and 1,841 others injured.
Prosecutors have called for the 28 defendants to be sentenced to a cumulative total of 311,865 years in prison although under Spanish law the longest jail term anyone can actually serve for terrorist crimes is 40 years.
Lawyers for the accused have five days to appeal the sentences to the Supreme Court.
During the four-month trial which wrapped up on July 2, all of the accused -- 19 mostly Moroccan Arabs living in Spain and nine Spaniards charged with providing the explosives used in the bombings -- said they were innocent. The defendants also denied having any link to radical Islam or Al-Qaeda.
The conservative government at the time initially blamed the armed Basque separatist group ETA.
But evidence quickly began to point to Islamic radicals angered over Madrid's decision to send troops to back the US-led war in Iraq.
Spain had been threatened with reprisals by Al-Qaeda because of its involvement in Iraq, in a message signed by the leader of the terror network, Osama bin Laden, and released on October 18, 2003.
Two days after the attacks, the Spanish government announced the discovery near a Madrid mosque of a videotape in Arabic claiming the attacks on behalf of "Al-Qaeda's military spokesman in Europe."
The opposition Socialists scored a surprise victory in a general election on March 14, aided by the perception that the ruling Popular Party had tried to cover up evidence that Islamic radicals were behind the bombings.
New Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero promptly fulfilled a campaign promise to withdraw Spain's troops from Iraq.
Seven prime suspects blew themselves up three weeks after the attacks in an apartment block when they found themselves surrounded by police. One policeman was killed in the blast.
Police were able to trace the SIM card of a mobile phone that was attached to one of the train bombs that did not explode to a shop run by one of the defendants, Moroccan national Jamal Zougam.
Zougam was one of the first suspects to be arrested and he is one of the trial's five main accused.
He and fellow Moroccan Abdelmajid Bouchar were seen by witnesses leaving backpacks on the trains which are thought to have contained bombs.
The three other key defendants -- Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, Youssef Belhadj, and Hassan Al-Haski -- are accused of masterminding the bombings.
Plaque at the city hall in memory of the casualties in the 11-M terror attack in Madrid 
The Audiencia Nacional of Spain (National Court of Spain) has found 21 of 28 defendants guilty in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

The defendants were facing charges including murder, forgery and conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack. 27 of them are men and one is a woman. 19 are mostly Moroccan Arabs and nine Spaniards.

Chief Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez read the verdicts which came after three months of deliberations.

Jamal Zougam, Otman el Ghanoui and Emilio Trashorras were found guilty of murder. The three were given sentences of 42,924 years in prison, although the most one can serve in Spain is 40 years. As far as the other guilty verdicts, no one was given more than 23 years for their part in the crime.

Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, aka "Mohamed the Egyptian", was acquitted although he is serving a ten-year sentence in Italy on other terrorism charges. Jose Maria de Pablos, spokesman for a victims' association, said: "We're very surprised by the acquittal. If it wasn't them, we have to find out who it was. Somebody gave the order."

"I'm not a judge or a lawyer but this is shameful, outrageous," said Isabel Presa, who lost her youngest son in one of the explosions. She told journalists of her outrage at what she thought were lenient sentences.

The 2004 Madrid train bombings (also known in Spain as 11-M) consisted of a series of coordinated bombings against the Cercanías (commuter train) system of Madrid, Spain on the morning of March 11, 2004, killing 191 people and wounding 2,050.