The suspected leader of al Qaeda in Spain, accused of aiding the September 11 hijackers, went on trial with 23 others in Madrid today in Europe's biggest court case against suspected Islamist militants.
The trial that is expected to take months and carries possible jail sentences of more than 60,000 years began with the only Spanish-born suspect telling the court he condemned terrorism.
"I absolutely condemn all terrorist acts, all violent acts, the spilling of blood of children, women and the elderly. And I don't believe that as a Muslim but as a citizen of any ideology," Luis Jose Galan, a convert to Islam, said under questioning from the prosecutor.
Luis Jose Galan
Galan is an old acquaintance of the central figure in the case, Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, who faces sentences totalling 62,512 years if convicted on charges he helped the September 11 hijackers plan the attacks on US cities in 2001.
Galan, who is accused of belonging to al-Qaeda and of possessing weapons, faces 18 years in prison.
The Spaniard admitted owning some weapons but said they were all for sport and were properly licensed.
The case against him focuses on a trip he took to Indonesia in July 2001, shortly after Barakat Yarkas had been there.
Investigators believe Galan received military training in Indonesia, but he said he went to visit friends and pursue business opportunities.
Before going to Indonesia, Galan received an e-mail from there requesting arms for the jihad, prosecutors say.
Galan said he could not remember that particular e-mail but that he often received a range of reports from the Muslim world.
"They can write me an e-mail asking me for the atomic bomb or just about anything. Right now I don't remember," he said.
The trial's first day was marked by testy exchanges between some of the 20 defence lawyers and presiding judge Javier Gomez Bermudez, head of a three-judge panel hearing the case.
The defendants, in street clothes, were held in a bullet-proof glass booth, although two of them were allowed into the open courtroom for medical reasons.
The defendants were brought into a secure area of the building in police vans with a battery of uniformed police and television cameras camped outside the courtroom.