An Egyptian suspected of being a mastermind of the Madrid train bombings said in secretly recorded conversations that the March 11 attacks will teach a "lesson to Europe" that it must distance itself from the United States, an Italian news agency said Monday. The suspect, Rabei Osman Ahmed, also described the government of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who sent troops to Iraq, as dictatorial and said he hoped Italy would have a "disaster" like the one that hit Spain, according to the ANSA news agency. The conversations were recorded June 5, two days before Osman Ahmed was arrested in Milan, the news agency said. He was speaking to a Palestinian who was picked up with him, Yahia Payumi, and to a third man ANSA identified as an Egyptian. The Milan prosecutor who is conducting the probe, Armando Spataro, could not immediately confirm the report.
"Madrid is a lesson to Europe, which must understand it has to take its distance from the Americans," ANSA quoted Osman Ahmed as saying. "I wish that God eliminates this Berlusconi government because it is a dictatorial government, because it is destroying Islam," he said, according to the report. "Let's hope God gives him a disaster, so his country, too, will have a disaster." Referring to President Bush as a "dog," Osman Ahmed said: "Whoever follows the dog will only have an earthquake, and Madrid has proven it." Earlier this month, Italian daily Corriere della Sera published what it said was a transcript of another secretly recorded conversation in which Osman Ahmed said, "the Madrid attack is my project," and it "cost me a lot of study, it took me 2.5 years." Osman Ahmed was apprehended on an international arrest warrant and Madrid is seeking to extradite him. A hearing on the extradition has been set for July 30. |