February 16, 2007	Friday	Muharram 27, 1428

MADRID, Feb 15,: The trial of 29 suspects over the 2004 Madrid train bomb attacks completed its first day on Thursday with one of the alleged masterminds denying any involvement and condemning the bombings.

“Mr President, I never had any relation with these events which occurred in Madrid,” said Rabei Ousmane Sayed Ahmed, nicknamed “Mohammed the Egyptian.” ”I was never part of Al Qaeda or any Islamic organisation,” he said at the start of the biggest Al Qaeda related trial to date in Europe.

The first of 29 suspects in the trial added he “condemned unreservedly and completely” the attacks, which the prosecution blames on mainly Moroccan Islamic extremists inspired by Al Qaeda wanting to punish Spain for its military involvement in Iraq.

The synchronised bomb blasts had ripped through four packed commuter trains, killing 191 people.

“Mohammed the Egyptian” agreed to answer questions solely from his defence team, having begun the session by rejecting all charges against him and insisting he would refuse to give evidence at all.

“With all due respect, I don't recognise any of the accusations or any of the denunciations. I am not going to answer any questions, including those of my defence counsel,” said the bearded Ousmane, clad in a beige jacket and dark jumper, in his opening comments.

The hearing finished shortly after 6:00 pm (1700 GMT).

During his testimony he also condemned the Sept 11, 2001 attacks in the US and the July 2005 attacks in London.

A bullet-proof chamber held 18 of the suspects, who observed the proceedings sat on wooden benches. The remaining 11, currently on bail, sat in the main courtroom area.

“Mohammed the Egyptian” is alleged to have boasted in phone conversations intercepted by Italian intelligence that “the whole Madrid operation was my idea.” He is one of seven defendants facing jail sentences of up to 40,000 years each for the deaths and for membership of a terrorist organisation, although under Spanish law the longest jail term anyone can actually serve is 40 years.

The other accused will stand trial for lesser offences, including collaboration with a terrorist group.

The trial, which opened amid tight security at a high court venue on the outskirts of Madrid, will hear evidence from some 600 witnesses and around 100 experts and to last some five months before a likely October verdict.

The blasts were the biggest in the Western world since the Sept 11 attacks.

Squadrons of police were outside the court, many of them armed, others with dogs, while a helicopter flew overhead as armoured police vans brought in the accused watched by relatives of the victims.

“It's going to be difficult to look in the eye of those who destroyed my life but I will do it for my son,” said Pilar Manjon, a woman who lost her son in the attacks and who chairs a victim support association.

Psychologists were on hand to help survivors and victims' relatives cope with the trauma of reliving the worst terror attack in Europe since the December 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie that killed 270 people.

“I am going to look into the eyes of the killers of my daughter. She took the train around seven in the morning -- and she'll never come back. I hope the killers are convicted,” said Djamila Benselah, a Moroccan woman who lost her 13-year-old daughter.

Joelle Veoyer, a Frenchwoman injured on one of the trains, defied her psychologist's advice to attend.

“I needed to see those who almost killed me and who did kill 191 people,” she said, adding she came “out of solidarity” with the parents of Marion Subervielle, a 30-year-old compatriot who was killed.

Three of the four alleged main plotters will be in the dock: Ousmane, Youssef Belhadj, alias “the Afghan” and Hassan el-Haski, alias “Abu Hamza.” The fourth was among seven men who blew themselves up in a police raid near Madrid three weeks after the attacks.—AFP