Posted on 06/09/2004 11:27:43 AM PDT by Nasty McPhilthy
Madrid suspect gave game away with stupid blunder
June 10, 2004 MILAN: Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, the Islamic militant known to Spanish authorities as "Mohamed the Egyptian", tripped himself up with one of the oldest mistakes in the book - bragging over the telephone.
Italian authorities had tapped his home phone in Milan after Ahmed - who was arrested as part of multi-city European raids on Tuesday - fled Madrid in the months before the March 11 train bombings there that killed 191 people.
The 33-year-old former Taliban explosives expert is suspected of supplying the bomb-making expertise for the Madrid operation and recruiting its leader, Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, in a Madrid mosque.
But when Fakhet, also known as "The Tunisian", and six other militants blew themselves up in a Madrid apartment on April 3 rather than surrender to police, Ahmed made his big blunder.
According to a Spanish radio station yesterday, Ahmed, who had found work in Milan as a house painter after his flight from Spain, was overheard in a telephone conversation shortly after the April 3 blast saying: "Those in Spain are my friends, but I am sad because I could not go to heaven with them."
He was heard in several other conversations saying he was ready to die for Allah, according to Italian investigators.
Spanish media reported that Ahmed's arrest came after someone was able to place him as being at the house where the Madrid bombs were prepared.
Fifteen suspects -- Egyptians, Moroccans, Palestinians and Jordanians -- were seized in raids in Antwerp and Brussels, and Ahmed and his flatmate, a Palestinian identified as Yahia Payumi, were arrested in Milan. An Italian official said a third man was detained, but only because he was with Payumi when the authorities swooped. The raids, involving about 200 police officers, netted documents, videos and computers, but no firearms or explosives, the BBC reported.
Police insisted the arrests had foiled a new terrorist atrocity; Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisano said the group "was ready to spread more terror and shed more blood in other attacks".
Spain has begun proceedings to extradite Ahmed, who will face 191 counts of murder, 1430 counts of attempted murder and four counts of terrorism, according to court officials.
In the past, however, European authorities have often arrested groups of alleged radicals only to have to release them for lack of evidence.
Arrogance's flip-switch.
With Iraq and Afghanistan now free, people like this have less sanctuaries to train and to train others. Thanks to President Bush
He might actually do a couple of months of jail time. /sarcasm
I'd be suspicious of any Muslim named Rabei.
That alone, should have gotten him shipped off to Gitmo -- even if he wasn't involved in the Madrid bombing.
This is a war.
Ping.
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