December 10, 2003	Wednesday	Shawwal 15, 1424

MADRID, Dec 9: Tayssir Alluni, a Spanish reporter who worked in Iraq for Qatari television station Al Jazeera, on Tuesday told a Spanish judge there was no Iraqi “resistance” either in or around the Palestine Hotel where two cameramen were killed after a US attack during the invasion.

Mr Alluni, accused by judge Baltasar Garzon of belonging to Al Qaeda, was giving evidence in a preliminary inquest into the death of Spanish cameraman Jose Couso, killed along with a Ukrainian colleague from Reuters television when US tanks fired on the hotel on April 8.

“I am one of the only journalists to have gone right round the hotel and there was no resistance,” Mr Alluni told reporters at the court afterwards after judge Guillermo Ruiz Polanco asked “if there was any resistance around or inside the hotel, (or) if there were any shots being fired.”

Washington’s version of events is that a tank fired on the building after locating a sniper they believed was coordinating Iraqi fire from the hotel.

Alluni took refuge in the hotel after US forces bombarded his television station’s office, killing one reporter in the process.

“I was afraid they would continue firing on the hotel. It was one of the worst days of my life,” Alluni said.

“It was a message from the Americans to the international press.”

Mr Couso’s family are seeking damages from the 64th armoured regiment of the US third infantry division.

The Popular Party of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, which strongly backed the US-led intervention in Iraq, last month rejected an opposition motion condemning the killings as well as calls for an enquiry into Couso’s death.

Mr Alluni, a Spaniard of Syrian origin arrested on September 5 at his family home in the southern city of Grenada, gained notoriety for an interview he conducted with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Suffering from a heart defect, he was released on bail on Oct 23. —AFP