The trial of 29 mostly Moroccan suspects charged with involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bomb attacks, which killed 191 people and injured 1,824 in Spain.
MADRID: The trial opened on Thursday of 29 mostly Moroccan suspects charged with involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bomb attacks, which killed 191 people and injured 1,824 in the worst terror strike to hit Spain.
The trial, which is expected to hear evidence from more than 600 witnesses and last for some five months before an October verdict, opened amid tight security at a high court venue on the outskirts of Madrid.
The attacks, which the prosecution alleges were the work of mainly Moroccan Islamic extremists inspired by Al-Qaeda and angered by Spanish military participation in Iraq, were the biggest in the Western world since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
Squadrons of police were outside the court on Madrid's western outskirts, many of them armed, others with dogs, while a helicopter flew overhead.
The accused were brought successively in armoured police vans, which arrived with sirens wailing. "My legs are trembling, I'm afraid. My stomach is churning," said Pilar Manjon, a woman who lost her son in the attacks and who chairs a victim support association.
One of four alleged masterminds of the deadly Madrid rail bombings Rabei Ousmane Sayed Ahmed, rejected all charges against him and said he would refuse to give evidence.
"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 suspect known as 'Mohammed the Egyptian,' the first of the 29 men accused to appear in the dock as the trial opened.
The court will hold three days of sessions per week through to July with a verdict due in October.
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