February 28, 2008	Thursday	Safar 20 ,1429

MADRID: A court in Spain on Wednesday convicted 20 Islamic radicals of belonging to a terrorist group, but acquitted them of planning to blow up the courthouse, judicial sources said.

Ten others accused were acquitted of all charges, the sources said.

All 30 were charged with belonging to an Al Qaeda-inspired cell and of planning attacks in Spain.

They were arrested in 2004, several months after the Madrid train bombings of March 11 that killed 191 people and which were claimed in the name of Al Qaeda by an Islamic cell.

The prosecutors at the anti-terrorist court charged the 30 were planning an attack either on the National Audience, the Supreme Court, a Madrid metro station or the headquarters of Spain’s opposition Popular Party.

The prosecutors said the plot against the National Audience anti-terrorist court was the most advanced. They said the accused had planned to ram a lorry loaded with 500 kilograms of explosives into the building.

The court ruled that this charge could not be proved.

But it convicted 20 of the 30 defendants of setting up a terrorist network by recruiting Muslims in prison for the jihad, or holy war, the sources said.—AFP