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Oregon law enforcement officials have admitted they may have moved prematurely with the arrest of Brandon Mayfield, but were forced to do so because of leaks to the media.

The suspect is a former Lieutenant in the US Army, who has acted in the defence of people with suspected El Que'da links:

Mr. Mayfield, who is an American citizen, has a link to one of the six defendants in a highly publicized case in Portland who were convicted of conspiring to aid the Taliban and Al Qaeda. He represented one defendant, Jeffrey Leon Battle, in a custody case involving Mr. Battle's son. Mr. Mayfield did not represent Mr. Battle in the criminal case.

Only a few weeks ago, AvNell Mayfield said, Mr. Mayfield was telling her how upset he was by the case of Capt. James Yee, a Muslim Army chaplain who had been accused of espionage before charges were dropped. Captain Yee and Mr. Mayfield had both been stationed at Fort Lewis in Washington State and had crossed paths while stationed in Germany, she said.

"He thought that was so unfair, that our government could ruin a person like that and no public apologies were made," Mrs. Mayfield, a seventh-grade art teacher, said. "I never thought it would happen to my family."

The case against Mayfield is based on one of his dabs being uncovered on a plastic bag found among forensic evidence connected with the Madrid bombing:

Spanish officials said on Friday that American investigators had apparently matched Mr. Mayfield's fingerprints to a single print on a plastic bag recovered from a stolen van used by the bombers. The bag, which held seven copper detonators like those used on the train bombs, was found at a suburban Madrid train station hours after the bombings.

A senior Spanish counterterrorism official said that investigators from Spain and the United States differed on whether the fingerprint on the bag conclusively matched those of Mr. Mayfield, who was identified to the Spaniards only as a military veteran who had converted to Islam. Though a Spanish police report described the forensic evidence as a match, the official said, F.B.I. officials had raised some questions.

It is not known if there is any other evidence held besides the forensic that has been disclosed