An Egyptian accused of being one of the masterminds of the Madrid train bombings almost three years ago told a court today that he had not been involved, despite intercepted conversations in which he allegedly bragged that he was the brains behind one of Europe's worst terrorist atrocities.

"I never had any relation to the events which occurred in Madrid," Rabei Osman el-Sayed Ahmed said under questioning from his defence lawyer on the first day of the trial of 29 suspects.

A total of 191 people were killed on March 11, 2004, when ten backpack bombs blew up within minutes of each other in four Madrid commuter trains during the morning rush hour. It was Europe's deadliest terror attack since a Pan Am jet was brought down over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

Squadrons of armed police surrounded the courtroom on the outskirts of Madrid as the trial began. Police on horseback blocked off nearby streets and a helicopter flew overhead as the suspects - many of them of Moroccan origin - arrived in armoured police vans with sirens wailing.

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Background

• Muslims held over Madrid massacre

• Chilling last hours of Madrid bombers

• Madrid relives its train bomb horror

• Comment: Michael Portillo: The terrorists’ other outrage was to make Spain shrink

Related Links

• Comment: Michael Portillo: The terrorists’ other outrage was to make Spain shrink

• Madrid relives its train bomb horror

• Eta hunger striker rejects sentence cut

As Spain relieved one of its darkest days - television stations played and replayed images of body bags and twisted train carriages - Mr Ahmed was the first suspect called to the stand but initially refused to answer any questions from prosecutors.

Later he told the court in Arabic that he condemned the Madrid attack "unconditionally and completely", adding: "This is a conviction I have very clearly and absolutely."

He also said he condemned the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States and the suicide bombings on London of July 7, 2005.

Mr Osman was arrested in Milan, Italy, in June 2004 on a warrant from Spanish authorities. Of the 29 men being tried, he is one of three accused of masterminding the attacks. Italian prosecutors have said they tapped phone conversations in which Osman told an associate in Italy, "I’m the thread to Madrid, it’s my work."

The trial has ignited painful memories of what Spaniards consider the nation’s most traumatic event since the civil war of the 1930s. Unlike the attacks of 9/11 or 7/7, the March 11 bombings served mainly to divide the country.

"I hope justice is served and that there is a worthy sentence for Europe’s worst terrorist attack," Pilar Manjon, the president of an association of March 11 victims who lost her 20-year-old son in the massacre and said today's trial was like "reliving the 11th of March".

She then stared at all 29 defendants as they were brought into the court, saying that she wanted them to remember her face as it would "turn into their worst nightmare".

Some 100 experts and 600 witnesses, many of whose lives were shattered in the blasts, are due to testify before a three-strong panel of judges, who are expected to hold three days of sessions per week until July and give their verdict in October.

Seven lead defendants, including Mr Ahmed, face possible jail terms of 30 years for each of the killings and 18 years apiece for the attempted murders of the 1,820 people injured in the attacks - totalling some 40,000 years each although under Spanish law the maximum time anyone can serve for a terrorist conviction is 40 years.

Inside the courtroom itself, the defendants sat inside a bullet-proof glass cage, many of them turning their backs on the victims' families in the courtroom beyond.

Each defendant was permitted one family member in the courtroom, who sat not far from some of the victims. Representatives from the US and Chilean embassy occupied the seats reserved for visiting diplomats and observers. The seats will rotate throughout the long trial.

The judge, Javier Gómez Bermúdez, has taken the rare step of allowing the entire trial to be broadcast live. Some cable channels plan to show most of the trial and all of it can be followed on the internet. Analysts said the judge was keen to make the trial as transparent as possible, given the number of conspiracy theories that have grown up around the case.

Two of the other alleged masterminds were to follow Mr Ahmed on to the stand. The fourth was one of seven suspects who blew themselves up in an apartment block weeks after the bombs.

The investigation into the bombings has been dogged with continuing conspiracy theories. Today, the right-leaning daily El Mundo continued a campaign aimed at proving the attack had links to Eta, the Basque separatist group.

When the bombs exploded on packed commuter trains three days before general elections, the then-ruling conservative government quickly blamed the attack on Eta.

As more evidence pointed to Islamist militants and a videotape surfaced claiming that the attack was revenge for Spain’s support for the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, Spaniards turned out in force to vote the conservatives out of power.

The new Socialist government, headed by José Luis RodrÍguez Zapatero, quickly fulfilled an election pledge to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq.

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