Bombing suspect has links to Sept 11

By TIM GAYNOR

MADRID - A Moroccan suspect detained by Spanish police in connection with the Madrid train blasts was already known to authorities over the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Mohamed Chaoui, 34, who was among five men detained at the weekend over the bombings that killed 200 people, had been linked to an investigation into the Spanish al Qaeda cell that helped to plan the United States attacks.

Jean-Charles Brisard, an investigator hired by relatives of victims of the World Trade Centre attacks, said Chaoui's name had appeared in transcripts of a conversation between two members of a Spanish al Qaeda cell involved in planning the US attacks.

Brisard, who runs an independent investigating firm called JCB Consulting and is an expert on terrorist financing, said he had seen the Tangier-born suspect's name in the transcript of a telephone conversation bugged on the orders of the Spanish investigating magistrate Baltasar Garzon.

The conversation - taped in August 2001 - was between Barakat Yarkas, thought to be the head of the al Qaeda cell in Spain, and a man called Abdulak al-Magrebi. In the conversation, Magrebi says: "You should get in touch with Jamal and his brother Mohamed Chaoui from Tangiers."

Police say Spain was an important staging ground for the September 11 attacks, along with Germany. A Spain-based al Qaeda cell is said to have provided money and other assistance to the lead suicide pilot, Mohamed Atta, who visited Spain to meet other accomplices two months before the attacks.

As Spanish police continued to hold the five suspects - three Moroccans and two Spanish nationals of Indian origin - over the train bombs, a growing body of evidence, including recovered mobile phones, detonators and a chilling video testimony claiming responsibility, all point toward al Qaeda rather than ETA involvement as the Spanish Government at first maintained.

The suspects were arrested in Madrid after investigators were led to them by a mobile phone and a prepaid card found in a sports bag stuffed with explosives that failed to detonate. The two Indians, Vinay Kohly and Suresh Kumar, were also picked up by police but were not formally arrested.

Chaoui is the owner of a telephone store, the Nuevo Siglo, where two other suspects worked, according to reports.

The shop is located in Madrid's Lavapies neighbourhood, where many Arab immigrants live.

The Interior Minister, Angel Acebes, said the suspects were being interviewed for their "presumed involvement in the sale and the falsification of the mobile telephone and card that was found in the bag that failed to detonate".

The men were traced after the handgrip of the bag was found to contain a Trium mobile phone with a prepaid sim card rigged up to a detonator and 10kg of Spanish-made Goma 2 ECO gelignite.

The bomb was set to be triggered by the phone's alarm rather than an incoming call, but had been set to 7.30pm instead of 7.30am.

Investigators found the device, the one dud among 10 that tore through packed carriages to devastating effect last week, was primed using a copper detonator similar to those found in a white Renault van at a suburban railway station where the bombers were thought to have planted their deadly load.

The van contained an Arabic audio tape of verses from the Koran and half a pack of unused explosives.

- INDEPENDENT