Spain Surrenders: Clears Alleged Madrid Terror Ringleader & Bombers

Insanity. Dhimmitude. Submission. Surrender.

Four cleared over Madrid terror blasts Times Online (hat tip Wolf)

Four men have had their convictions for participating in the 2004 Madrid train bombings quashed by Spain's top appeals court — bringing to 11 the number of people acquitted in connection with one of Europe's worst terrorist massacres.

Three Arab men were cleared yesterday of belonging to the radical Islamist cell that carried out the March 11 bombings, killing 191 people and injuring 1,800. A Spanish man was also cleared of trafficking explosives.

In a further blow for the Spanish prosecutor, the court upheld the acquittal of a man known as “Mohammed the Egyptian”   , one of the alleged masterminds of the atrocity.

Yesterday's ruling disappointed victims of the bombings, who had already been shocked by many of the sentences handed down in October 2007.

After a sprawling investigation and complex trial, the court found 21 people guilty of involvement in the attack. Three men — two Moroccans, and a Spaniard who provided the bombers with explosives — were given sentences that should keep them in prison for 40 years, the maximum allowed under Spanish law.

The court cleared three men of masterminding the attack and acquitted seven others. Many of the sentences that were handed down were far more lenient than the public prosecutor had sought.

[...]

After several suspected ringleaders blew themselves up during a raid by Spanish commandos days after the bombings, “The Egyptian” was the most senior figure charged with involvement in the attack. Italian police said that the man - whose real name is Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed - was recorded in his Milan flat taking credit for the bombings while he watched a video of the US hostage Nicholas Berg being beheaded in Iraq.

The court upheld the ruling that he could not be convicted of belonging to a terrorist group because he was already in jail in Italy on that charge.

WTF?

Comments

[charlesmartel]

Ahh, perfect precedent for Mr. Justice Kennedy to release all of our friends at Gitmo into the U.S. where they can get food stamps and maybe even a Bivens action.