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| Europe |
| Spain frees more terror suspects |
| 2003-03-22 |
| A Spanish judge has released 14 of 16 suspected Islamic terrorists arrested in eastern Spain on January 24. The releases came in two court sessions, seven of them late Thursday and seven more Friday, the sources said. Two of the 16 — Mohamed Tahraoui and Mohamed Amine Benaboura — remained in custody on Friday. They are charged with collaborating with terrorist organizations, which carries a minimum six-year sentence. The 14 people released are still under investigation, but the court official and defense lawyers said the judge did not have enough evidence to keep them in jail. Those released must report each week to court officials near their Oops. Aznar, on February 5 in the Spanish Parliament, cited the arrests of the 16 to link Iraq to al Qaeda, while an international debate was raging on that possible link, in the run-up to the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. Spain's largest newspaper, El Pais, reported on Friday that the seven people released Thursday were Smail Boudjelthia, the brothers Ali and Sohuil Kouka, Youb Soudi, Amin El Ghzaoui, Majid Alhoujad and Mohamed Benammou. The 16 were arrested in January based on information provided to Spain by a French Judge Jean-Louis Brugiere, a leading official in the fight against Islamic terrorism. But on February 19, Brugiere advised Spanish officials that he would not seek extradition of the 16 because they had not committed any crimes in France. "Shucks, kinds of jihadis we got living in the cities, why, your boys don't even make the junior varsity." Since then, Spanish media, citing officials, have reported that at least some of the 16 would be released from jail. Officials on January 24 linked the 16 to al Qaeda and the Salafist Group for Call and Combat. The Salafists are a spin-off of the main militant Islamic opposition group, Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, in Algeria. At least some of the 16 had been in contact with four Islamic terrorist suspects arrested in France in last December. Sound like low-level hard boys. The French suspects included Merouane Benahmed, a suspected expert in chemistry and explosives who was linked to a to a terrorist cell arrested in Frankfurt in December 2000 that had plotted to attack Strasbourg Cathedral in France. |
| Posted by:Steve White |