If you could document this, that would be great.
Thanks.
Sanel Sjekirica, one of the Islamic terrorists sought by Spanish authorities, was a student at the University of Oviedo in Asturias, northern Spain. He completed a course in architecture and computer technology, and he last attended his course on 20 November. The 23-year-old is wanted along with Amer El Aziz and Rabei Osman Ahmed in connection with the 11 March massacre. According to sources from the Ministry of the Interior, Sjekirica was also being watched by security services before the Madrid bombings. Aziz has been linked to the 11 September attacks in the United States and was accused of involvement by Judge Baltazar Garzon. Meanwhile, authorities in Bosnia are working with Spanish police to see if Sjekirica is of Bosnian origin. According to AFP news agency, the head of the Interpol in Bosnia, Brane Pecanac, said they were treating this as an urgent case and hoped to have results soon. It also emerged that the ’mastermind’ behind the 11 March attacks Serhane Ben Abdeljamid Fakhet, alias the Tunisian, had his studies paid for by the Spanish authorities for the past four years as part of an international educational programme.
Bosnian Suspect Held in Madrid Bombings
A Bosnian man wanted for questioning in the Madrid bombings voluntarily returned to Spain from what he called a vacation in Sweden and was arrested, the Interior Ministry said Saturday. Sanel Sjekirica, 23, was arrested Friday night after he arrived at Madrid's Barajas airport on a flight from Stockholm. Sjekirica, who studies computer science in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo, told The Associated Press earlier this week in Sweden that he learned through media reports that he was a suspect. He denied any role in the attack that killed 191 people, but said he once shared an apartment with Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, the Tunisian real estate agent that Spanish authorities have identified as the ringleader of the plot.
Published: Thursday, 28 April, 2005, 12:10 PM Doha Time
MADRID: A man charged with mass murder over the September 11 attacks for taking video of the World Trade Center said yesterday the video was merely part of a series of pictures he took on a long-awaited US holiday in 1997.
Ghasoub al-Abrash Gha-lyoun, a 39-year-old native of Syria, is one of 24 defendants on trial for belonging to Al Qaeda in Spain and one of three charged with 2,500 murders for helping the aircraft hijackers who attacked New York and Washington.
Ghalyoun recounted with glee his 1997 vacation in America in which he took video of the Sears Tower, the Golden Gate bridge, the Hollywood sign and other famous landmarks.
“I didn’t just film emblematic centres but all tourist centres. Unfortunately at one of those tourist centres there was the misfortune that happened (on September 11, 2001). Of course, who would have thought it,” testified Ghalyoun, neatly groomed in a tan suit.
Regarding the Hollywood sign, “I couldn’t believe I was filming it, I swear to you. This is the sign that you see in all the Hollywood movies!” Ghalyoun said with a broad smile.
The case linking Ghalyoun to the World Trade Center attacks – for which he faces a maximum sentence of 62,500 years in prison if convicted – is based on the Twin Towers video, which investigators allege he later turned over to other members of Al Qaeda.
Police say his pictures of emblematic buildings like the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty concentrate on the pillars.
The original tapes were seized three years ago when Ghaylun was arrested during a search of his home in Spain.
Ghaylun was to be grilled later on the reasons why he filmed the World Trade Center’s twin towers, which were subsequently brought down by airliners which air pirates used as flying bombs.
Looking dapper in a suit with beige tie, Ghaylun came alive when he described with great detail his journey across America: from the neon lights of Las Vegas casinos, to Hollywood, Basketball giant Michael Jordan’s restaurant in Chicago and John F Kennedy airport in New York.
“I had never seen so many planes parked in an airport. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I just filmed,” he said.
He was much less forthcoming in discussing his ties with the presumed leader of Al Qaeda’s Spanish branch, Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, describing them as a mosque relationship, then a business relationship.
Yarkas, 41, is accused of organising a July 2001 meeting where plans for the 2001 attacks in the US were finalised, and of running an Al Qaeda recruitment unit in Spain since 1995.
Yarkas, who describes himself as a businessman, is also accused of having recruited young Islamic militants who were allegedly sent to train and fight in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and Indonesia.
Authorities also believe he was key in establishing the Islamic extremist networks later blamed for the March 11, 2004 train bombings in Madrid, which killed 191 people and injured almost 2,000.
Ghalyoun testified he met other defendants in the trial - including Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, the alleged founder and leader of Al Qaeda’s Spanish cell – at a Madrid mosque.
While on the stand he retracted parts of a 2002 statement to investigators in which he said he believed Barakat Yarkas promoted jihad in discussions at the mosque. Ghalyoun said he was referring to another suspect, Mustafa Setmariam. – Agencies