Security and Intelligence; Spain “Al Qaida” detainees released
01 March 2003
Fourteen of the sixteen Moroccan and Algerian nationals arrested in Catalunya on 24 January 2003 suspected of links with Al Qaida and of planning terrorist attacks were released on 21 March. The operation followed a request to search a dozen homes from a French judge investigating a planned terrorist attack in Strasbourg in 2000. On 12 February Audiencia Nacional judge Guillermo Ruiz Polanco had demanded that the police provide some evidence to justify keeping the suspects in custody. On 19 February the French judge informed his Spanish counterparts that France will not ask for their extradition, as the detainees were not accused of committing any crime in France. The release on 21 March followed tests that were carried out on substances that were confiscated in a bottle and two containers. They revealed that what were suspected of being chemical or explosive substances to be used for terrorist attacks were in fact harmless cleaning products. Some forged documents were also found in the raids, although most of them turned out to be authentic. Two of the suspects are still in custody pending further investigations: one for possessing false documents and another for having electronic materials, including cables and mobile phones, that investigators claim could be used to activate explosive devices.
The findings are an embarrassment for the government, which played up the Islamic terrorist threat in the run-up to the war. An interior ministry press statement issued after the arrests in Barcelona and Girona on 24 January assured that “they had access to explosive and chemical products”. José Maria Aznar, prime minister, used the arrests to justify his government´s support for the war in Iraq by stressing that “they were preparing to commit attacks with explosive and chemical materials”, and that “I hope and wish that what happened today in Catalunya will be useful to make many people take note that we are not talking about hypothetical or remote threats: we are talking about something that we have before us”. References to the arrests were also made in a parliamentary debate on the war on 5 February to illustrate the links between Saddam Hussein, Al Qaida and the so-called “Spanish cell”. On their release after nearly two months´ detention, one of the suspects argued that they had been used as an excuse for Spanish support for the war, “The fact that we were released after the war ended says it all”, while another one said that “I won´t buy any more bleach”, ironically referring to one of the confiscated “substances”.
One of the prisoners who remains in pre-emptive detention alleged being mistreated, and that his statement was taken at 4 a.m., with police officers threatening to send him to his “fucking country”, where he would be killed. Three people detained in another anti-terrorist operation, in Valencia on 7 February 2003, and released without charge on 12 March, criticised their detention. One alleged that he was denied his medication, that he was left in a tiny, moist cell, with the light constantly switched on (stronger at night) and that he was twice blind-folded when the Guardia Civil were taking his statements. Their lawyers may file a suit for ill-treatment, and argued that “what happened is very serious and contravenes fundamental rights included in the Constitution.
El País, 6.2, 14.2, 20.2, 21.2, 26.2, 27.2, 14.3, 22.3.03