SPAIN: A 16-year-old Spaniard was sentenced to six years in a juvenile detention centre yesterday after he pleaded guilty to charges he helped steal and transport dynamite used in the March 11th Madrid train bombings.
It was the first trial arising from the bombings that killed 191 people and wounded 1,900, the most devastating attack in modern Spanish history.
The juvenile - dentified only by his initials G.M. because he is a minor - made a short appearance in the armoured basement courtroom in Madrid's High Court building. The trial had been moved from the juvenile court for security reasons.
Most of the 30 train bombing suspects under arrest or court supervision are North Africans described by High Court Judge Juan del Olmo as on an Islamic holy war against the West.
In videotaped messages the bombers claimed to represent al-Qaeda in Europe and said they were attacking Spain for sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The juvenile, however, was a Spaniard from the northern region of Asturias, who came into the plot through links to an older Spanish man who dealt in drugs and black-market explosives, prosecutors said.
In February, while others were stealing dynamite from an Asturias mine, he waited in a car outside, and Moroccan suspects then took the explosives to Madrid in a car, they said.
He was later sent to Madrid on a bus to retrieve the car -- but on the way he carried with him a backpack containing more explosives, for which he received 1,200 euros. Other explosives were paid for in Moroccan hashish.
Judge José Maria Vazquez Honrubia asked the defendant if he agreed with those charges and the six-year term proposed by the prosecutor.
He replied simply: "Yes." The judge then sentenced him to six years in a juvenile detention centre followed by five more years of supervision.
The public was separated from the court by bullet-proof glass. The suspect, with his mother sitting next to him, was hidden from view by a screen.
The case came to trial a relatively swift eight months after the attacks because the suspect is a minor. His associates called him El Guaje, meaning The Little Guy.
- (Reuters)