Spain puts alleged al-Qaida members on trial

MADRID, Spain — Twenty-four suspected al-Qaida members went on trial yesterday, including the group's alleged ringleader in Spain and two associates accused of aiding one of the Sept. 11 suicide pilots who flew a jetliner into the World Trade Center.

The proceedings were Europe's biggest trial of alleged al-Qaida militants and made Spain only the second country after Germany to try suspects in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001. The only man charged in the United States, Zacarias Moussaoui, pleaded guilty yesterday to helping al-Qaida carry out the attacks.

In a sometimes feisty appearance, the lone native-born Spaniard among the 24 Muslim defendants said he neither supported nor rejected al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, but insisted that he himself rejected all forms of terrorism.

"Muslims are not terrorists," said Luis Jose Galan, 39. "All we want is to live in peace."

The lead defendant is Syrian-born Imad Yarkas, 42, a father of six who allegedly directed a terrorist cell that provided logistical cover for Sept. 11 plotters, including Mohamed Atta, who is believed to have piloted one of the two planes that destroyed the twin towers in New York. Yarkas is expected to testify next week.

Lawyers for at least one defendant say they might seek testimony from terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. The only person convicted of involvement in the Sept. 11 plot — Mounir el Motassadeq in Germany in 2003 — had the verdict overturned when an appeals court ruled his trial was unfair because the U.S. did not produce such testimony. He is being retried.

"It is very possible we will seek testimony from persons held in the United States," said Manuel Tuero, lead attorney for the suspected financial brains behind the Madrid cell, Mohamed Ghaleb Kalaje Zouaydi. "We'll have to see how the trial goes," he said.

Yarkas' lawyer, Jacobo Teijelo, said he would not make such a motion. Among other things, Yarkas is charged with helping arrange a July 2001 meeting in Spain between Atta and Sept. 11 coordinator Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who is now in U.S. custody. Teijelo said it would be pointless to seek testimony from al-Shibh to show the meeting did not take place. "A negative fact cannot be proven," he said.

An eight-year investigation by magistrate Baltasar Garzón concluded that Muslim extremists leading quiet lives as businessmen, laborers and waiters operated in Spain for years, recruiting men for terrorist training in Afghanistan, preaching holy war and laundering money for al-Qaida.

As the trial opened, all but one of the mostly Syrian and Moroccan defendants sat on wooden benches in a cramped, bulletproof chamber in the makeshift courtroom. Tayssir Alouny, a reporter for Al Jazeera television who is the only defendant free on bail, was allowed to sit in the courtroom's main section because of a heart problem.

Galan, who is accused of illegally possessing weapons and belonging to al-Qaida, was questioned by a prosecutor and the chief of the three-judge panel.

He acknowledged knowing some of the defendants as well as others indicted in the case who are fugitives, but said that was only because they went to the same Madrid mosques.

Asked about a shotgun, pistol and other weapons found in his Madrid apartment after his arrest in 2001, Galan said they were for target practice. "I have never used a weapon against a person or animal," he said.

He also played down a photograph showing him clothed as a Muslim freedom fighter and holding a rifle, saying that members of his family often dress in costumes.

Galan, who allegedly attended a terrorist training camp in Indonesia, was questioned about an e-mail he received from another suspect asking that he send weapons.

Galan said anyone could send him an e-mail "asking for the atomic bomb. So what?"