SPAIN: A Spanish judge investigating the Madrid train bombings has formally accused a Lebanese man of collaboration with a terrorist group, according to judicial sources.
Mahmoud Slimane Aoun, previously identified by a name he used in 1988, Gaby Eid Semaan, was the 25th suspect formally accused in connection with the March 11th attacks on packed commuter trains which killed 191 people.
Investigating magistrate Juan del Olmo ordered him jailed without bail after a hearing.
Mobile phone records showed Aoun knew several other bombing suspects and hours after the attacks was close to a house where the explosives are thought to have been prepared, the sources say.
Investigators say the attacks were carried out by Islamic radicals acting in the name of al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile an Italian court has approved the extradition to Spain of an Egyptian man suspected of planning the bombings. Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed was arrested in Milan in June. Spain immediately requested his extradition from Italy, where Italian prosecutors also want him to stand trial.
An opinion poll published yesterday has found that more than half of Spaniards have little or no confidence that a parliamentary committee set up to investigate the bombings will clear up what happened.- (Reuters)