From typicallyspanish.com
Spanish National Court releases Madrid train bomb suspect from custody
By m.p
Sep 4, 2007 - 10:18 PM
One of those accused in the Madrid train bombings trial – the terrorist attack on 11th March 2004 which is referred to in Spain as 11-M – has been released from preventive custody in the case.
He is named as Mahmoud Slimane Aoun, and faced 13 years in prison at the trial in the National Court: ten for collaborating with a terrorist organisation and a further three years for document forgery.
The defendant’s lawyer, Cristóbal Gil del Campo, told El Mundo newspaper that he believed his client’s release came after the court found him guilty only of the lesser charge. Slimane had already served the three years on remand following his arrest in July 2004.
He was, however, immediately re-arrested by officers from the police foreigners’ department under a deportation order to his home country, Lebanon, and is currently being held in police cells in Toledo.
The deportation order was issued by central government offices in Jaén province, Andalucía, in April 2005.
The prosecution accuse Slimane of helping Jamal Ahmidan – known as El Chino – in forging documents for the terrorist cell which carried out the attacks in Madrid.
El Chino was the leader of the cell, and was one of those who died in the suicide bombing in a Leganés flat on the outskirts of Madrid which killed seven terrorists and a police officer.
The suicides came a little over two weeks after the massacre in the Spanish capital which killed 191 people.
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| The explosion in the Leganés flat. Photo - EFE Archives. |
Slimane tearfully condemned the bombings when he appeared in court at the start of the trial at the end of February this year, saying that the sight of a woman in tears after the attack reminded him of his mother crying over his father’s death during the war in Lebanon.
More than three years down the line, eighteen of the 28 originally charged in the case remain in custody.