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| Terror Networks |
| Mysteries about Madrid's bombings (Part 2). |
| 2007-02-24 |
| This is the second installment summaizing a series of 32 articles published in Spain about the constradictiona, goofings and lies in the investigation about Madrid bombings. Links for preceeding parts of this series: Part1 Glossary: Tedax: is the special police unit for disarming explosives. Scientific Police: the police forensics unit. They are not part of the Tedax Guardia Civil: A branch of the Spanish military who does police work mostly in rural areas while the civilians of police are competent in rural areas. Fourth article: A shameless string of lies A bit of context (from myself): an unexploded bomb in a backpack and the chip in the cellphone was the first clue about the authorship, the day after a mini-van in Vallecas was discovered containing unrigged explosives and tapes in arabic for beginners in study of Koran. Now the article: The chief of the TEDAX, Sanchez Manzano, wrote a report, on March 12, telling that the explosives in the backpack and the van were both identic between themselves and to a reference sample of GOMA-2 ECO. Since the explosives were the same and in addition not used by ETA this reinforced the theory of an islamist authorship. But this was not true: the Scientific Police determined later that while the explosives of the van also contained methenamine (used in military grade explosives) who is not a component of GOMA-2 ECO. Still more curious the reference sample provided to them by the TEDAX contained methenamine too. Finally a few days after the elctions a bomb was discovered on the AVE's (high speed train) railway and it turned to be identical to the explosives in the backpack: pure Goma-2 with no trace of methenamine Remainder of the article discuss the successive turnarounds from Manzano as he first tells the judge "methenamine is part of GOMA-2" (false), later that it is not part of GOMA-2 but this is irrelevant because it is not an explosive (false again), then that he never mentionned methenamine in his reports because it is irrelevant (demonstrably false) Aftermath: Sanchez Manzano was fired in 2006 and left the police. In fact he was mere manager and knew nothing about explosives. I cannot discard that his misreaports were merely the blunders of a man who is out of his depth. I cannot disacrd that since he knew nothing about the subject he could have beeen manipulated by one of his subordiantes. I cannot discard that he was nominated due to being "politically reliable". Second aftermath: On Februray 23, 2007 (yesterday), the chief of the Scientific Police with three of his subordinates has been charged of "falsifying evidence in the investigation of the Madrid bombings". He erased any mention of boric acid from the reports of the experts. This deserves a whole chapter by itself due to the maneuvers of judge Garzon (and former number 2 for Madrid in the socialist party) to cover the falsifiers while sending the whistleblowers to jail. Article 5: The bread crumbs of Little Thumb Behaviour of terrorits attracts attention: they buy their tickets while wearing bonnets and scarves despite the warm weather. Then in the mini-van discovered on 11-3 there are no fingerprints, even in the coranic tapes but there are plenty of clothes (great for ADN analysis). The mini-van has been stolen but its license plates (authors were in the busineess of car stealing but don't have false plates) have not been changed. It has not ben forced and the owner lost the keys eight months before. JFM remarks: Why didn't they buy their tickets before hand? It is natural to think that the terrorists did use this van as litle as possible (to avoid an accidental arrest) and probably only once, the morning of the bombings, then why were those tapes in the van in the first place? In those last minutes before operation logic is spend them concentrating, doing a last briefing, checking if they are being shaded, not listening tapes. Article: In the van it was found a bag with detonators and a bit of explosive. Why? The bombs had been assembled elsewhere. A team of two dogs with their trainers got near the car. The van was searched by one of the dogs who didn't find any explosive. Also te parliamentary commission didn't call his trainer to testify but the other policemen. Then there is the question of the backpack found in Vallecas. There are two unconnected cables so there is no way it can explode, it was programmed for detonating at 7:40 instead of 7:38. It also points several important differences between this bacpack and another one who was unactivated. Alos initially nobody notices this backpack (who weighed 15 kgs) then agents get a series of orders and counterorders where objects collected travel several times between railway station, IFEMA (where judge had ordered they had to be stored), police station of Villa de Vallecas and police station of Puente de Vallecas. It is there that it is discovered it has a bomb inside. The chip in the cell phone in it led to first arressts. JFM's conclusions: If we admit that the goal was to overturn the elections outcome then a simple islamists vindication, it was a requirement to let leads allowing the police to arrest part of the ring befiore the elections. That the arrested people knew beforehand they were to be sacrified or not is secondary. What is troubling is the explosives in the van and the backpack who suddenly appear out of thin air. If neither the policeman who searched the van and the jouranlist aren't lying then that raises a lot of questions. |
| Posted by:JFM |
| #4 Mille gracias, Senor JFM, then. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-02-24 17:34 |
| #3 Two errata: In the glossary: police is competent in urban not rural areas. About Sanchez Manzano: I tiold he could have been nominated because he was "politically reliable". A better wording would have been: "he could have been nominated (notice the conditional) because he would do any dirty work if asked". The hypothesis of a political nominee is because he was neither competent about explosives nor a good manager |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-02-24 16:06 |
| #2 Thank you, trailing wife. But in this case you can say muchas gracias (I have two mother languages) |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-02-24 15:47 |
| #1 Thank you for doing this for us, JFM. You've discussed bits in the past, but it's really helpful to have it all neatly laid out in one place. Merci beaucoup! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-02-24 15:03 |