Spanish authorities have ended their interrogation of an Egyptian suspect in last year's Madrid train bombings and will send him back to Italy where he is accused of links to militant Muslim groups, court officials said Monday.  Spanish Judge Juan del Olmo has filed provisional charges of mass murder and terrorism against the suspect, Rabei Osman Ahmed, who was handed over by Italy in December for a maximum of six months. Spanish authorities say the Egyptian, considered an explosives expert, was a key figure in the planning of the bombings and in al-Qaida's structure in Europe. His return to Italy was scheduled for Monday, an official close to the case said. National Court officials said his possible return to Spain will depend on what legal proceedings Italy takes against him. Osman Ahmed, 27, was arrested in Milan in June after police wiretapped conversations in which he allegedly boasted that he was the mastermind of the Madrid bombings and was planning another attack. In an arrest warrant issued in June, del Olmo said that while living in Madrid the Egyptian "managed to take control of a small group of Arab followers, all of them with extremist Islamic ideology, supporters of jihad and Osama bin Laden." Spain pulled its 1,300 troops out of Iraq after Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's conservative government was defeated by the Socialists in elections March 14, three days after the bombings. |