By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer Wed May 4, 4:05 PM ET
MADRID, Spain - An accused Islamic militant who says he is simply a martial arts and physical education instructor burst into tears Wednesday as he denied belonging to a terrorist cell that allegedly helped plot the Sept. 11 attacks.
Abdulla Khayata Katan, 29, also claimed that Spain's top counterterrorism judge browbeat him into making false statements about fellow defendants.
Katan said guards at a Jordanian jail humiliated and abused him during a three-day interrogation in February 2004.
Judge Baltasar Garzon, an investigative magistrate, then pressured him into falsely incriminating the accused terror cell leader, Imad Yarkas, and others, Katan said.
"I am completely innocent," he said. "I have nothing to do with what they accuse me of."
Hours of the taped testimony were played in court Wednesday. In it, Katan did not complain or sound like he was speaking under duress.
But as the tape played, Katan interjected often. He accused Garzon of putting words in his mouth to suggest Yarkas recruited men for terrorist training in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
Katan said Garzon interrogated him without a translator and at times turned off the recorder to tell him what to say. Katan said the statements he made during the interrogation had "nothing to do with reality."
"I was following Garzon," said Katan, a Spaniard of Syrian origin who was turned over to Spanish officials after the interrogation.
After one session, Katan said Garzon told him to sign a document he did not understand.
"Don't worry, just sign it," Katan quoted Garzon as saying.
When Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez asked why Katan waited until now to recant his statements, the defendant said he had written Garzon five letters asking to testify again, but Garzon refused those requests.
Katan is one of 24 suspected al-Qaida members on trial in Madrid since April 22.
Three are accused specifically of helping plot the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. In testimony last week, Yarkas denied charges he helped arrange a July 2001 planning session in Spain for a suspected suicide pilot and an alleged coordinator of the airline attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The other 21 defendants, including Katan, face charges of terrorism, illegal possession of weapons or explosives or other offenses. Katan is not accused of having direct involvement in the Sept. 11 plot.
Garzon indicted these and other fugitive defendants in the case but is not presiding over the trial. He is in New York on a leave of absence, teaching courses on how to fight terrorism.
Prosecutors say Katan was recruited by Yarkas in 1995 to travel from Spain to Bosnia and teach Islamic fighters at a terrorism training camp. He returned to Spain in 1996, formed an offshoot of an al-Qaida cell and aided mujahedeen fighting in Bosnia and Afghanistan, according to prosecutor Pedro Rubira.
Katan acknowledged that he knew Yarkas and Mustafa Setmariam, a fugitive Syrian suspected of being a senior al-Qaida operative, but only from their fund-raising and recruiting activity at a Madrid mosque.
He described them as insistent, domineering men.
"They imposed their way, dominating people," Katan said in the tape.
He said while in Zenica, Bosnia, in 1995, he spent time at a house with Islamic fighters, but only worked there as a martial arts and physical education instructor.
The trial resumes Monday. Sessions are only held Monday through Wednesday.
--------------------------
Hmmmmm....I wonder if AP is as well a Serbian news agency...
Looks like Andan was right....and Hoplite and his mudjahedin buddies (AGAIN...!!!)...dead wrong...!!!!
Aw c'mon. Obviously the prosecutor must be Serbian :-D
ping
Didn't know the AP was an arm of the Serbian propoganda machine. < / sarcasm >