SPAIN:SPAIN'S SUPREME court has overturned the convictions of four people for the 2004 Madrid commuter train bombings in which 191 people were killed and more than 1,800 injured. The four were among 21 people convicted after a five-month trial last October.
The court also rejected an appeal by the prosecution against the acquittal of Rabei Osman, an Egyptian who was accused of being a mastermind of the attacks.
The court said that as Osman had been jailed for eight years in Italy for association with a terror group he could not be condemned again for the same crime. Prosecutors had argued that Osman was appealing against his Italian sentence and if he were successful he could be retried in Spain. Osman was arrested in Italy in June 2004 after allegedly saying in wiretapped conversations that the attacks were his idea.
The four men cleared yesterday - Basel Ghalyoun, Muhammad Almallah Dabas, Abdelilah el Fadual el Akil and Raul Gonzalez - were originally sentenced to between five and 12 years. - (Guardian service)