Informer Told Police Of Spanish Bomb Plot

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 4-25-2005 | Isambard Wilkinson

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Informer told police of Spanish bomb plot

By Isambard Wilkinson in Madrid
(Filed: 25/04/2005)

A political row over the al-Qa'eda train bombings in Madrid was rekindled yesterday after it emerged that a police informer had issued a warning three months before that Islamist terrorists were plotting the massacre.

The Socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, which came to power three days after the attacks, accused its centre-Right predecessor of "lies" and a "monumental lack of foresight" after the information emerged when security services documents were made public by the judge in charge of the case, Juan del Olmo.

The informant, who is under police protection, told the judge in April last year that he heard from his Moroccan-born brother-in-law, a cannabis dealer, that "Moroccans who traffic drugs'' were "going to put bombs on the trains''.

He said he had passed that information on to his police controller three months before the four bombs killed 191 people and wounded 1,500 on March 11 last year.

Two of the drug traffickers were the brothers Rachid and Mohammed Oulad Akcha, who took part in the massacre and later were among seven terrorists who blew themselves up as police stormed their house in Leganes a month after the attacks.

After the bombings the informant again met the police officer and the brother-in-law was arrested soon afterwards.

He is now in custody and is expected to be indicted to stand trial for his alleged part in the attack.

Police sources told El Pais newspaper that they could not say what use, if any, had been made of the tip the informant claimed he had provided. El Mundo said that the informant's handler from the anti-drugs smuggling squad had failed to tip off the anti-terrorist branch.

The trial of 22 suspects implicated in the March 11 plot is expected to open later this year.