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Police knew Islamic radicals bombed Madrid ‘in hours’
These timelines are JFM's specialty...
A police intelligence officer told the Madrid train bombing trial on Tuesday detectives suspected the attacks were the work of Islamic radicals “within hours”. The officer, from the Central Unit of Interior Information (UCII) which deals in intelligence, said on the day of the bombings – 11 March 2004 – officers had “strong suspicions” the atrocity had been committed by fundamentalists “by 3pm”.

Manuel García Rodríguez, a former police officer also told the trial he had not received any warning about the attacks in the weeks before from one of the suspects, Spaniard José Emilio Suárez Trashorras. Trashorras, who was a confidant of Rodriguez, is accused of supplying the explosives to the Islamic radicals. Trashorras is one of 29 people who are on trial for playing a variety of roles in the attacks which killed 191 people and left more than 1,800 injured.

Earlier, the intelligence officer, who did not want to be named, said no police officer had ever received any instruction to orientate the investigation in any particular way - a reference to claims politicians who believed the attack was carried out by the Basque separatist group ETA wanted the police to follow this line of inquiry. The then government of the Popular Party claimed the attacks were the work of ETA.
If I recall correctly, they claimed this for a minute and a half. Anyone with eyes could see it couldn't be an ETA op.
But voters in the general elections three days later believed this was a way to deflect from the unpopular support which the government had given to the US-led invasion of Iraq – and which had made Spain a target for the bombers. The Popular Party government was voted out and the socialists won a shock election victory.

Meanwhile, Rodríguez told the court that during interview Trashorras had never spoken of any connection between Islamic radicals and ETA. Trashorras was a confidant of Rodriguez before and after the attacks. But the former police officer said he only began to suspect the former miner knew something about the bombings afterwards because he made allusions to them.
Posted by: Seafarious 2007-03-28
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=184238