Madrid Train Bombing Suspects Questioned Over New Terror Plot
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
MADRID, Spain – Three Algerians who were considered close to the suspected ringleader of the Madrid train bombings are being questioned about an alleged suicide plot to blow up Spain’s National Court, officials said yesterday.
Spanish police said the three Algerians are among 10 prisoners who have been isolated from other inmates for questioning over a possible link to the alleged plot to kill judges investigating Islamic terrorists by blowing up the court.
In 2001, the court convicted the three Algerians of belonging to a terrorist group along with Allekema Lamari, the suspected ringleader of the March 11 train bombings in Madrid, which killed 191 people.
A police spokesman declined to comment on Mr. Lamari’s relationship with the three Algerian inmates. But the newspaper La Vanguardia quoted one investigator as saying the three were Mr. Lamari’s “people.”
In 2002, Mr. Lamari was released from jail in what officials said was an administrative mistake. The National Court released Mr. Lamari just weeks before receiving Supreme Court documents that rejected the appeal he had filed, meaning he should have been kept in prison.
In the March 11 attacks, several suspects now in jail or at large had either been under surveillance, had their homes searched by anti-terror magistrates, or done time for petty crimes like drug dealing.
