Madrid blast: Warrants issued
2004-04-27 12:32
Madrid - Authorities probing the Madrid bombings issued six international arrest warrants and announced the arrest of one of the suspects, the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.
Mohamed Bouharrat, a Moroccan, was arrested on Monday night in Leganes, the Madrid suburb where seven suspects in the bombings blew themselves up on April 3 as police prepared to storm their apartment and arrest them.
The March 11 train bombings, blamed on Islamic militants, killed 191 people and wounded more than 2 000.
The ministry said Bouharrat was linked to the apartment but it would not say how.
He was among the six Moroccan men for whom a judge issued an international arrest warrant on Monday night.
The government had previously identified another of the six, Said Berraj, as being among those that died in the suicide blast.
Of the other men named in the warrants, police suspect one identified as Mohamed Belhadj of having rented the apartment.
They say another, Abdelmajid Bouchar, apparently came out of the apartment to empty garbage as police prepared their assault, saw officers, screamed out to alert colleagues in the apartment and fled on foot.
The other two were identified as Mohamed Afalah and Hicham Ahmidam. The latter is a brother of a suspected ringleader, Jamal Ahmidan, who the government says died in the explosion.
A total of 18 people have been charged in the bombings - six with mass murder and the rest with collaborating or belonging to a terrorist organization. Of the 18 charged, 14 are Moroccans.
On Monday Judge Juan del Olmo freed one of the 18 but ordered him to report to the court once a week and seek permission for travel outside Spain. The terrorism charges against him remain in effect, however.
Last week Del Olmo released two Indians accused of selling cellphones used as detonators in the railway bombings. But they, too, are still charged with collaborating with a terrorist organisation.
- AP