Spanish investigators have accused a Tunisian man of being the leader of the group suspected in the deadly railway bombings last month in Madrid, according to court documents released Thursday.
The man, Serhane ben Abdelmajid Farkhet, 35, was identified in international arrest warrants as the “personal leader and coordinator” of those implicated in the attacks, which killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800 others March 11, three days before the Spanish general election.
Five other men named in the warrants are Moroccan: a man traced to an al-Qaida meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2000, two brothers of the only woman jailed in the case and a man who rented the house that was used to prepare the bombs.
Farkhet “not only was the energizing force for the awareness campaign for the jihad ... but also with specific intent (since the middle of 2003 at least) for the preparation of a violent act in Spain, specifically in the Madrid area,” said the warrants issued by the lead investigator, Judge Juan del Olmo.
By mid-2003, U.S.-led forces had occupied Iraq and toppled President Saddam Hussein. A purported spokesman for al-Qaida who claimed responsibility for the Madrid rail bombings said they were revenge for Spain’s firm support of the war.
Farkhet, who is also known as “the Tunisian” and whose name is also spelled “Fakhet” by the Interior Ministry, became the first non-Moroccan suspected in the case. So far, the investigation has focused on suspects from Morocco, which is just across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain and is the home country to most of the 19 suspects under arrest.
The Interior Ministry has identified the al-Qaida-linked Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group as the prime suspect in the bombings.
Investigators have also said they are working with foreign security services to track down suspects farther afield, including Abdelkarim el-Mejjati, the suspected operational leader of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group.
Mejjati is sought by the FBI and is wanted in Morocco and Saudi Arabia in connection with last year’s bombings in Casablanca, Morocco, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He has not been named in a warrant in the Madrid case.
New documentsThe warrants were the first court documents to be made available to reporters in the highly secretive case, in which suspects are being processed under Spain’s strict anti-terrorist laws.
Named in the warrants were Jamal Ahmidan, 33, identified as having rented the house where the Madrid bombs were prepared; brothers Mohamed Oulad Akcha, 28, and Rachid Oulad Akcha, 33, and Abdennabi Kounjaa, 28, who the documents say spent time in the house; and Said Berraj, 31, for an unspecified role in the attacks.
The documents say Berraj is suspected of ties to al-Qaida for “attending a meeting in October 2000 in Istanbul with three other presumed members of al-Qaida.”
