September 20, 2008	Saturday	Ramazan 19, 1429

MADRID, Sept 19: Prosecutors investigating an alleged plot to bomb Barcelona’s public transport system want to add a video claiming responsibility for the plan to their dossier, the prosecution said on Friday.

The video, which has been circulating on the Internet, will be presented to the Madrid court handling the investigation as evidence corroborating the statements of a protected witness, said a source in the prosecutor’s office.

In the video, a Pakistani Taliban group linked to Al Qaeda claims it was behind the foiled suicide attacks that had been planned for Barcelona in January, according to academic Fernando Reinares.

Reinares, who belongs to the Madrid-based Royal Elcano Institute, wrote in Thursday’s edition of the Spanish daily El Pais that the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had claimed responsibility for the planned attacks.

On June 5, Spain’s anti-terrorist court charged 11 of those arrested, most of them Pakistani nationals, with membership of a terrorist group.

Reinares, who also teaches at Juan Carlos University in Madrid, said that in the video, which appeared in August,

TTP spokesman Mawlawi (Moulvi) Omar claimed 12 of the group’s men had been planning the attack and that Spain had been targeted because of its military presence in Afghanistan.—AFP