Islamists on trial for plan to attack Spanish court (Roundup)

Oct 15, 2007, 11:47 GMT

Madrid - A trial opened Monday at Spain's National Court of 30 suspected members or collaborators of an al-Qaeda-inspired network charged with planning attacks against targets including the court itself.

Prosecutors were seeking prison sentences ranging from 2.5 to 46 years for the accused, who were mainly of Moroccan and Algerian origin.

Seven of the accused were charged with planning a suicide attack against the National Court. They intended to load a truck with 500 kilos of explosives and to drive it at full speed against the court building, according to prosecutors.

Other eventual targets included the Supreme Court, a Madrid railway station and the headquarters of the conservative People's Party (PP).

The trial had some links with that of 28 people charged with involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, at which one of the accused appeared as a witness.

The network on trial, which called itself Martyrs for Morocco, was dismantled in 2004.

It was allegedly headed by Abderrahman Tahiri, detained in Switzerland under the name of Mohammed Achraf and extradited to Spain, for whom prosecutors are seeking 46 years in prison.

Letters seized from prison inmates indicate that Tahiri started building the network while in prison near Salamanca, spreading his radical ideas to prisons elsewhere in Spain.

The network finally comprised four well-organized cells.

Achraf is suspected of tasking one of the other accused, Mauritanian national Kamara Birahima Diadie, with acquiring a ton of dynamite from a Spanish explosives trafficker for attacks against the National Court and other targets.

The case has links with the Madrid train bombings, Europe's biggest al-Qaeda-linked attack, which claimed 191 lives in March 2004.

Accused Abdelkrim Benesmail was earlier sentenced for belonging to the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) together with Allekema Lamari, one of the Madrid suspects who blew himself up with six others three weeks after the train bombings. Benesmail appeared as a witness at the Madrid bombings trial.

A protected witness has also supplied evidence for both trials.

The trial of the 30 started an hour late of schedule, because the bullet-proof space in the court room turned out too small for all of the accused. Ten of them had to face court outside of it.

The accused are charged with crimes such as conspiration to attack, belonging to an armed group or falsifying documents. The trial was expected to last about two months.