MADRID, May 29: A Spanish court on Tuesday acquitted 11 Pakistanis accused of plotting to blow up buildings in Barcelona, but found five others guilty of lesser charges, including collaborating with a terrorist organisation.
The 11 were arrested in September 2004 and prosecutors said the defendants had been planning to attack high-rise buildings and a shopping centre in Barcelona. The prosecutors requested jail terms of up to 32 years.
But the National Court acquitted them for lack of evidence. However, it said three — Mohammad Afzaal, Shahzad Ali Gujar and Mohammad Choudry — had sent money to Muslim militants. The three suspects received jail terms of five and a half years.
The court said the alleged recipients included the late Amjad Farooqui, who it said was involved in the kidnapping and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Pakistan. Another may have been Rabei Osman, an Egyptian on trial now as an accused mastermind of the Madrid terror attacks of March 2004, the court said.—AP
