AP Features, February 28th, 2007
A Spanish former miner suspected of having supplied the dynamite used in the 2004 Madrid train bombings told a court Wednesday he had tipped off police months before the attacks that Moroccans now implicated in the case were looking to buy explosives.
Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras, 30, said that at the end of October 2003, some five months before the attacks, police from the northern city of Oviedo "came to ask me exclusively about explosives and I gave them information about Jamal Ahmidan and Rafa Zouhier."
Ahmidan was one of seven key suspects who killed themselves after being surrounded by police three weeks after the March 11, 2004 bombings. Zouhier is charged with being a middleman in the sale of explosives between the alleged Islamic extremist cell that carried out the attacks and the Spaniards who supposedly sold them.
Trashorras, a former police informer since 2001, admitted buying hashish from Ahmidan but denied he knew the Moroccan had any plans to carry out attacks.
"If I had known that I would have advised (police)," said Trashorras, one of 29 suspects, mostly Moroccans, on trial for the bombings.
Trashorras faces jail terms of 30 years for each of the 191 killings and 18 years apiece for 1,820 attempted murders. Forty years is the maximum time anyone can serve for a terrorist conviction in Spain.
On his first day testifying Tuesday, Trashorras denied having supplied the explosives used in the massacre, saying the accusations sounded like something out of "a movie plot".
But he admitted that Ahmidan had inquired about obtaining explosives during a meeting at a McDonald's restaurant in Madrid but said he only agreed with him to buy drugs.
In testimony Wednesday, the Spaniard denied having any contact with the northern mine from where the explosives were allegedly stolen, or with its workers, following his early retirement for medical reasons in 2001. He suffers from schizophrenia and paranoia.
Investigators believe the perpetrators of the bombings got the explosives from the mine where Trashorras worked in exchange for hashish and cash.
The rush-hour bombings were one of Europe's worst-ever terror attacks. In a video found near a Madrid mosque two days later, a hooded speaker claimed responsibility in the name of al-Qaida, saying they were in revenge for the involvement of Spanish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Trashorras said he was offered the chance to be a protected witness if he pointed the finger at the Moroccans being rounded up following the attacks.
"They told me my wife and I would be protected witnesses and that there'd be no problem," he said.
Later he said he believed police offered him this "because at that time they had no idea of anything."
Since the case started Feb. 15, 21 defendants have denied any role in the attacks.
