The accused mastermind of Europe’s worst Islamist terrorist attack was cleared of all charges along with six others yesterday in a shock judgment that angered victims.

Twenty-one others were convicted of playing a role in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, though many of them on much lesser charges than the prosecution had sought.

Family members of the 191 people killed and 1,800 injured expressed astonishment, branding the sentences as lenient and feeble, and vowing to appeal.

Pilar Manjón, who heads the largest association of victims, said: “I don’t like to see murderers walk free.” She lost her 20-year-old son when ten bombs packed into sports bags and detonated by mobile phone ripped through four commuter trains.

The court ordered victims of the bombings to be paid between €30,000 (£20,900) and €1.5 million (£1 million) in compensation.

One of the highest amounts will go to the family of Laura Vega, 29, who remains in a coma in a Madrid hospital. They will receive about €1 million to help to pay for her continuing care.

The atrocity was the world’s largest terrorist attack since September 11, 2001, and was the first European example of al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism on a large scale. But prosecutors failed to convince judges on the three-man panel of a direct al-Qaeda link. And the verdicts also failed to answer the question of who plotted the attack.

The accused mastermind, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, known as Mohammed the Egyptian, burst into tears of relief upon hearing the verdict, shouting “You see that I’m innocent?” according to his lawyer.

He is serving a ten-year sentence on unrelated terrorism charges in Italy, where police taped him bragging in a telephone call about his supposed plotting of the Madrid bombings.

Amid a heavy security operation that included armoured cars and police helicopters buzzing overhead, Judge Javier Gómez Bermúdez read out the verdict to a hushed courtroom. Three men - two Moroccans and a Spaniard - were given the toughest sentences in the complex six-month case.

Jamal Zougam, 34, a Moroccan who lived in Madrid, was convicted of mass murder, having placed one of the bombs packed with dynamite and nails aboard the trains. Police arrested him after finding that one of the mobile phones used in an unexploded bomb had been sold from his shop. Several witnesses also reported seeing him aboard one of the trains that morning.

Othman el-Gnaoui, 32, was also found to have had a direct role in the attack and was convicted of murder.

José Emilio Suárez Trashorras, 31, a Spanish miner with a history of mental illness, was convicted of being a “necessary collaborator” in the bombings after selling the dynamite used in the attack to the Madrid cell.

The three were each sentenced to between 35,000 and 43,000 years in prison - though under Spanish law they will serve a maximum 40 years.

Three other Spaniards were convicted of helping Trashorras to traffic the explosives stolen from his mine.

But the judge had to call for silence in the court as he announced a series of sentences that left victims aghast. Of the three men accused of planning the bombings, two were convicted only of belonging to a terrorist organisation, and given sentences of 12 and 15 years. With the acquittal of Mohammed the Egyptian, the prosecution was unable to secure the conviction of anyone for masterminding the bombings.

Seven alleged ringleaders blew themselves up when police surrounded their flat in Madrid three weeks after the attacks, leaving only relatively minor players to face charges.

Despite the acquittals, the Government scored one important success in the trial. The court moved decisively to bury a conspiracy theory, supported by the main opposition party, that the attacks were the work of Eta, the Basque separatist group.

“There is no evidence to support the thesis” that Eta was behind the attack, the judgment stated.

The conservative Popular Party lost power in general elections three days after the blasts and some members have maintained that they were victims of an ill-defined conspiracy between Eta and the Socialist Party to oust them. Nevertheless, the Popular Party seized on the failure to bring the ringleaders to justice to call for a fresh investigation.

By contrast, José Luis RodrÍguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, hailed the trial as a triumph. He praised the work of the police and security services. “Today justice was done and we must now look to the future,” he said. “The sentence shows that the citizens can have confidence in the force of the law, and the loyal and efficient work of those charged with enforcing it.”

But the sentence also raised serious doubts about the way in which the Spanish security services had acted before the attacks. Several of those on trial for supplying the explosives were police informants. One, Rafá Zouhier, had warned police that the Spanish miners were selling explosives more than a year before the attacks.

Rafael Calduch, a professor at Complutense University, Madrid, said: “The negligence of the security forces has been very much placed in evidence. That is going to have legal consequences for some police leaders.”

Police have boosted the number of agents dedicated to Islamic terrorism tenfold since the bombings, and claim to have foiled further attacks.

But José MarÍa de Pablos, spokesman for a victims’ association, voiced his dismay at the acquittal of Mohammed the Egyptian and other accused ringleaders. “If it wasn’t them, we have to find out who it was. Somebody gave the order.”

Commuter carnage

— At 7,37am on Thursday, March 11, three sports bags filled with dynamite and nails exploded on a commuter train as it entered Atocha station, Madrid. Less than two minutes later, four similar bombs detonated on a train just outside the station. Simultaneously, three further bombs exploded in two trains on the outskirts of the city. All four trains had left the same station, Alcalá de Henares, 19 miles outside Madrid.

— The attacks claimed the lives of 191 and injured more than 1,800

— Initially, Prime Minister José MarÍa Aznar blamed Eta, the Basque separatists group, sticking to that theory even after detonators and tapes of verses read out from the Koran were found inside a van near Alcalá de Henares station

— A general election was held on the Sunday after the attacks. On the Saturday night a tape purporting to be from al-Qaeda claimed the bombings were “a response to your cooperation with the criminals Bush and his allies”, referring to the 1,300 Spanish troops in Iraq

— Many thought that Mr Aznar’s insistence that Eta was behind the attack was an attempt to deflect blame from himself for the war in Iraq. Despite leading by 6 per cent in polls a week before, Mr Aznar’s Popular Party lost to the Socialists under José Luis RodrÍguez Zapatero, who had promised to withdraw from Iraq if he won

— Police quickly determined that the sports bags used in the attack were detonated remotely using mobile phones.

— In April 2004 police tracked seven men to a flat in the Madrid suburb of Leganés. Before they could be apprehended, the suspects blew themselves up

— More than 70 other suspects were eventually arrested, in an investigation that spanned six countries. One important suspect, Mohamed Afalah, is presumed to have died in a suicide attack in Iraq

— 29 people were eventually charged in connection with the attacks in Madrid. Their trial lasted five months, involved 40 lawyers and called 350 witnesses

— 21 people were convicted, with the three main perpetrators receiving symbolic sentences ranging from 35,000 to 43,000 years. Under Spanish law they will be released after 40 years

Source: Times archives, Agencies

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