3/11: The Sentence: It wasn't Al Qaeda, It wasn't Iraq

Following the informations I've been publishing on the independent investigations regarding 3/11, I translate excerpts of a long assessment by Luis del Pino.

[It is striking that the Spanish media has portrayed the sentence of the 3/11 case, published on October 31st, as a defeat of the conspiracy theory when the sentence has dropped:]

• the intellectual authors of the crime.
• the references to the War of Iraq as motivation of the attacks.
• one of the four main evidences of the case: the Skoda Fabia.

The references to Al Qaeda were already lost long ago in the official version of the attacks, as soon as it began to appear the first inconvenient connections that forced to cut the threads which led to the owners of the house of Morata. But the Office of the Public Prosecutor had conserved a "theoretical model" in which the massacre was justified by the support of Spain to the War of Iraq, and in which three people of apparent Islamist profile appeared like presumed inducers or masterminds of the massacre. And all this has disappeared, along with the references to that Skoda Fabia placed in Alcala three months after the attacks and whose falsification we, the conspiracy theorists, pointed out.

That those pieces have a strategic importance is shown by the fact that one has been the main heading in all international media. In the urgent headings immediately published after the sentence, those media did not focus their attention on whether the theory of the conspiracy has been defeated or whether the prison terms sentenced were higher or lower, but in the fact that 3/11 had remained without mastermind, as the persons indicted for being the intellectual authors of the massacre have been acquitted.

We will analyze what is referred to the Skoda car in a future article. At the moment, we will maintain that 3/11, according to the sentence, was committed by a cell of Islamists in conjunction with some Moroccan criminals/mercenaries and the collaboration of a group of Asturians that trafficked with explosives and who were commanded by a police informer.

Or it is the other way around? That 3/11 was committed by a group of Asturians commanded by a police informer, using some Moroccan criminals/mercenaries and a cell of Islamists? Or 3/11 was committed by a group of Moroccan criminals/mercenaries, using to a cell of Islamists and a group of Asturians commanded by a police informer?

Missing the "motivation" of the attack represented by the War of Iraq, the sentence is ambivalent. To whom the lead corresponded, since the "masterminds" have disappeared? In fact, the body of the sentence, and especially the episode of Leganés, seems to put the center of attention on the Islamist aspect, but the certain thing is that the intellectual responsibility is not assigned. In addition, none of the three top prison terms sentenced have fallen on Islamists: one to Trashorras, the Asturian police informer; another one to Otman El Gnaoui, criminal of Moroccan origin, whom the same recorded telephone conversations that have served to find him guilty reveal that he has nothing of Islamist; and, finally, Jamal Zougham, that has nothing to do with either of the three mentioned groups: Islamists, Asturians or Moroccan delinquents.

Who decided to put 12 bombs in the Madrilenian suburbs trains three days before the National elections, killing 192 people? Was the intellectual author somebody pertaining to the group of the Islamists? Or was he, on the contrary, linked to that group that Trashorras commanded? Or was he somebody that issued orders to the Moroccan criminals/mercenaries? Or is some person or set of people located completely aside of all the groups in which the convicted structure themselves?

What it surprises more of that sentence, once completely read, is to verify that it is the best sentence than the [right wing] PP could obtain. That the PP could obtain without entering into question of the operation of the State, I mean.

Before the trial, all the "judicial truth", collected in the successive writs of the investigation judge, in multiple writings of the Office of the Public Prosecutor and in the diverse police information, affirmed that ETA did not have anything to do with 3/11; that 3/11 was a Jihadist attack caused by the war of Iraq; that the instruction of the case had been correct; that the evidences were true and sufficient, that the inducers were clearly characters linked to Islamist organizations... And that, therefore, was clear that the PP lay between March 11th and the 14th, when it insisted on attributing the attack to an ETA of which the investigations showed no evidence.

After the trial, however, we are before a completely different panorama. With a new "judicial truth" that alters in a showy way the position that previous existed. The disappearance of the intellectual authors and the elimination of the War of Iraq as motivation of the attacks turn the PP as the great beneficiary of the sentence.

After the reading of the sentence by the court, if the Socialist party affirms it wasn’t ETA, the PP can answer now: it wasn’t Al Qaeda either. If the Government says that Everything was clear, the PP answers: we do not know who was the one that gave the orders, which proves that we must continue investigating. If somebody accuses the PP of lying between March 11th and 14th, the answer is immediate: Then also lay the ones that linked the massacre with the issue of the War in Iraq. What can have happened so that the PP takes a technical tie starting off from a loser position? Or, in other words, what can have forced the Government to grant that technical tie in the last moment?

Whereas the sentence itself represents a backward movement of the official theses that gives back to the PP a tie situation, the summary of the sentence was carefully chosen to tackle the ones that have been questioning the evidence.

Even though the own sentence states the fall of one of [the four] fundamental evidences of the case (the Skoda Fabia car), the summary of the sentence read [publicly] in the court carefully avoided any mention to the subject, sending a forceful message of support to the judicial procedures, support to the police investigations and confirmation of the questioned evidence.

The message could not be clearer. I have to say to the members of the court that we all have understood it perfectly: the operation of the State is not a subject of discussion. And poor the man that does it, because he will be put under public mocking live. Received message, your honours. Thank you very much.

Which takes us back to answer the question which we raised before: why the Government grants a tie, if it had a winning position? I believe that the answer is obvious: because long ago the “Conspiracy Brigade” [journalists and volunteers independently investigating 3/11] had put the finger on the only sore where, by definition, it cannot be put: in the role that the sewers of the State played in the coup of regime of 3/11.

[The “sewers of the State” was an expression coined during the investigations of the Dirty War against ETA]

From the beginning, they tried to lock up all Spaniards in the false dilemma: either ETA or Al Qaeda. From the beginning, they tried to associate that imaginary "conspiracy theory" with a nonexistent defence of ETA’s responsibility.

But the problem arose when some of us refused to accept the play field that they had set up. When some of us began to question the own evidence that they were displaying. When some of us insisted on indicating something that is obvious for whoever is not blinded by his own convictions: that the false evidences could not be planted either by ETA or Al Qaida. It was not Josu Ternera [an ETA leader] the one that planted a Skoda Fabia car in Alcala three months after the attacks. Nor Ben Laden either.

For that reason it was necessary to grant the tie: in order to clarify a position in which the own services of the State were begining to be put under scrutiny. And for that reason it was necessary that the court sent a forceful message advising against such daringness.

From what pieces the sacrifice was demanded to grant the tie we spoke before? It is very clear: we, the Conspiracy Brigade. After all, that is one of the tasks of we, foot soldiers: being cannon fodder. Media cannon fodder in this case, but cannon fodder.

Assessment of the Sentence (3): The Reach of the Defeat

That one is the message that was tried to broadcast with the staging of the reading of the sentence, but is it true that they have been defeated?

Throughout the investigations, we have been putting on the desk indication after indication of the falsification of the evidences of the case. For example, of the backpack of Vallecas. There has never been anybody that answered us that any of those indications was false, that is: there has never been anybody that could argue that we had invented an indication or that we had pulled it from our sleeve. Because the data that we published were correct. It was true, for example, that the backpack of Vallecas had two disconnected cables. It was certain, for example, that that backpack did not figure in the listing of objects catalogued in the police station of Puente de Vallecas, and so on... The only argumentation which we have received as answer, throughout three years, is that all those indications, that were truthful, "did not prove" anything. That they were mere indications that did not imply that the evidences were false.

Besides accumulating indication after indication of the falsification of the evidence, we have shown in these three years the documentary falsifications that of the own [Judicial] summary was giving off. Somebody has been able, in these three years, to answer the evidences that we published on the matter? No. Because when we have denounced, for example, that the telephone of a police officer was replaced by the one of the inspector Parrilla in the telephone listings [included in the summary] is because we had the documentary evidences that certified it. Consequently, which has been the policy of those who defend the official version, at the time of answering these denunciations of documentary falsification? Silence.

Besides of putting on the desk the indications of fabrication of evidences and the evidences of documentary falsification, we have been denouncing, systematically, the concealment of data and the destruction of evidence in the investigations. Has anybody been able to say that we lay when we denounced that the trains had been taken apart, that the personal belongings and clothes of the victims had been incinerated, that the tapes of the police operation at Leganés had been erased? Of course not, because it was true. What has been the answer, then? In some occasions, silence, and in others to affirm that it was something irrelevant. Why was it important, for example they told us, the fact that the trains have been destroyed?

But not only that. Throughout these three years, our denunciations have never been refuted, but in some cases they have had consequences before the own conclusion of the trial. Thus, for example, when we denounced that they were hiding the analyses conducted in the morning of 3/11 and that we did not know in fact what was what exploded in the trains, and they admitted we were right when they ordered new analyses of the explosives. Or when we denounced that the episode of the shooting in Zarzaquemada, previous to the location of the Leganés apartment, was a lie, and then the Office of the Public Prosecutor was forced to drop that episode in its final writing of qualification.

So in these conditions, for the theses with which we have questioned the official version had been defeated, it would have been necessary that the sessions of the trial or the own sentence caught us in some lie. It was not so during the trial, of course, in which each one of the declarations confirmed, point by point, what we had written and saying.

Has the sentence proved that we have published false data, not even a single one? No.

Has the sentence refuted any of our denounces of documentary falsification we have made? No.

Does the sentence deny any, not even a single one, episodes of hiding or destruction of evidence? No.

Not only that, but the sentence confirms with the solemnity of a “judged fact”, the denounces that we formulated against one of the four fundamental evidences of the case, the Skoda Fabia car, that it is discarded as evidence by the own sentence. Similarly, it explicitly confirms that “we do not know exactly the trademark of the explosive that went off in the trains”, as we have denounced.

They have wanted "to sell" us the idea that our theses had been defeated because the court has admitted as "true evidences" the other three fundamental pillars of the case: the Kangoo van, the backpack of Vallecas and the suicide of Leganés. Well. Then, if this one is the criterion to see if we have been defeated, it will be necessary to enter to analyze in detail the argumentation that the court provides for each one of those three evidences.

¡Vaya, vaya, vaya! In the end the Conspiracy Brigade hadn’t been anihilated! It was another lie! Now comes the Office of the Public Prosecutor saying that such marvellous sentence that supposedly defeated us is to be appealed! Take that!

Since, the geniuses that decide from carpeted offices how the public opinion is manipulated, have calculated wrongly the effects of the move again. So much time they have been travelling in official cars with tinted glasses that they have forgotten even the color of the sidewalks. Hardly can anticipate how human beings are going to react someone for whom the people are only one fraction of percentage in the surveys.

They thought that they could deceive all, those of one side and those of the other, and direct 3/11 to its definitive closing. But, in the end, they have not been able to deceive anyone.

Because, as soon as we took the first fast reading of the sentence, we could detect how they tried to deceive us all.

The fundamental deceit was the abysmal difference between which the sentence says and the way in which it had been wanted to display before the media. Being a sentence that destroys half of the official version, the summary paragraphs were chosen carefully, to present it as if it were the definite defeat of the "conspiracy theory". That is, consciously it was presented a deceptive summary of the sentence with the purpose of obtaining a certain effect in the public opinion.

And now, five days later, it is clear who were the addressees of that effect, that is, who was wanted to be deceived, it is clear who had to carry the can of the closing 3/11. On one hand, us, those who had been three years denouncing how it has been lain to us all. And on the other hand, all those sectors of the public opinion, including a big fraction of the victims, whom the issue of the War of Iraq was being sold during three years, now to dump them.

While they pretended, with a lying summary, that they were giving the definite blow to conspiracy theorists, while they pretended with that summary that the official version was triumphant, they made disappear, in the text of the sentence, the intellectual authors and the references to the War of Iraq.

Thus betraying all those who during three years were told that the 3/11 attack was motivated by the foreign policy of Aznar. Betraying to all those, including many victims, whose rage was fed and it was used with no scruple to prop up an official version constructed with lies and false evidences. Thus betraying all those who, during three years, were forced to swallow bizarre theories, now to dump and strain them, by means of a set-up perfectly staged, a sentence that as much eliminates all reference to Al Qaida as to Iraq.

We have not been the betrayed ones by this unbearable mend so-called "sentence of 3/11". We have been only the excuse, the propitiatory victim, presumably sacrificed in a set-up destined to indeed betray the ones that more ardently have defended the official version in these three years.

But it was a bad move. And it was a bad move in two ways. Because with the media slap that they gave us they thought that they could silence or frighten us. And they did not realize that there are many, many, people who have felt that slap as it was directed personally to them. Because what they call "conspiracy theorists" are not an average dozen journalists and twenty crazy persons more that distribute leaflets, but there are many millions of Spaniards who are not willing to let the massacre be covered-up, who do not accept that the investigations be buried, who had followed the news, who could see the trial and who do not tolerate that against arguments it is answered with anything else but arguments.

And, in the other side, there were also many Spaniards who sincerely believed in the lies that they told them, who defended through thick and thin evidences that would not be accepted even in Burma, who were arranged to ignore the evident falsifications and perjuries, who believed blindly that the improbable official version was possible, and who, if they were arranged to accept everything, it was simply because they knew clearly which was the motivation of the crime: the War of Iraq, because that is what they what they were told. And now that motivation of the crime is taking off from them, and it happens that of the official version that was sold to them is left with the episodes already improbable. It is just left a pathetic story according to which a schizophrenic Asturian, two drug dealers, three police informers and four discotheque thugs suddenly assembled themselves to plant twelve bombs in the trains, without being known neither why nor what was their objective. It is no wonder they feel betrayed.

And the Office of the Public Prosecutor is forced to react because, just as we have realized that we were the sacrificed ones, also the betrayed ones have realized their situation. And they are requesting explanations. Welcome to the club of the deceived ones, you who believed in the official version. Every day there are more members in this club.

Let me formulate again for you the question which I implicitly asked in the article of the other day: What is there so sinister behind the attacks of 3/11 in order to arrange your betrayal as long as the services of the State are left untouched?

A good summary of the sentence in the latest Luis del Pino TV program on the case here @ LDTV

As a summary, the sentence of the 3/11 case seems to be, above everything else, a political one. It is built on some premises:

ONE: the main result of the trial, strikingly, seems to be that the State is acquitted of any wrongdoing: the investigation is declared correct, no security forces’ members are prosecuted -even when in some cases they accused others before the judge of ordering the destruction of evidence- and even the link of the attack to the war of Iraq and Aznar’s government foreign policy disappears as mysteriously as the trains themselves did.

TWO: the court charged against the Conspiracy Brigade with what it seems was a tailored summary of the sentence publicly read, which did not correctly reflect what really the sentence itself said or the penalties imposed. The main evidences whose supposed manipulation could be linked to small groups or individual members of the Spanish security forces, or would represent that the past National Elections were something very similar to a fraud –because they would have constituted a sign of manipulation of the public opinion if proved false- are considered by the court as right evidence. The message is clear: don’t you dare, free man, to interfere in the business of the State.

THREE: However, behind this smoke screen well publicized by the Spanish media, the court surreptitiously gave up as evidence the Skoda Fabia –a car that appeared three months after the attack in the Alcalá station, where the bombs were loaded in the trains, plenty of evidences- and the issue regarding the intellectual authors of the massacre. Both were difficult positions to defend, however, although the first one, the drop of Skoda Fabia, could be considered a tactical withdraw that directly incriminated no security forces’ members; the second one might seem to be linked with some kind of deal to avoid further investigations even if the right wing PP wins the National Elections. Many Spaniards cannot conclude but that the real ones behind the attack had fortified their position.

FOUR: the court endorses as theory of what happened a twelve-bombs adaptation of the old story of the lone shooter.

Curiously, such expected mend has reached levels in the Spanish public opinion which the bombs, carefully planted and detonated in order to not disturb the elites, did not hit. It has been a slap in the face of many people that still wanted to believe that we are living in a democracy. Now the sentence adds to the rapidly deteriorating economic situation to cast a gloomy shadow over Spain’s future.

If it wasn't ETA, if it wasn't Al Qaeda, then who was it?

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Articles regarding the independent investigations of 3/11 published in English:

CHRONOLOGIC SUMMARY:

1. Well, well, well, what have we here? by Dan Darling (4/5/2005)

2. What I think I know about Huarte by Dan Darling (4/14/2005)

3. Spain’s “Terrorgate”? by Frank J. Gaffney Jr. (5/18/2005)

4. The Mystery of 3/11 - Part 1

5. The Mystery of 3/11 - Part 2

6. The Mystery of 3/11 - Part 3

7. The Overlapping Plots by Luis del Pino, Chapter 1 of his book style="font-style: italic">Los Enigmas del 11-M (translation Rojo4).

8.Did Al-Qaeda participate in the 11-M bombings? by Luis del Pino,

Chapter 2 of his book Los Enigmas del 11-M (translation Rojo4).

9. 3/11 Revisited - Part 1, based on Luis del Pino's book Los Enigmas del 11-M, Chapter 11.

10. The Amazing Life and Death of Jamal Ahmidan (I) by Luis del Pino, Chapter 12 of

his book Los Enigmas del 11-M, translation and title by J Aguilar (10/5/2005)

11.Trashorras talks to EL MUNDO by Fernando Múgica, EL MUNDO newspaper.

12.Lavandera talks to EL MUNDO

13.Did ETA pay the Jihad? (9/15/2006)

14.The Battle Rages (10/4/2006)

15.ETA Provided False Identifications to the Islamic Terrorists that Attacked the WTC in

1993 by Javier Oyarzábal to City FM radio (10/17/2006)

16.The Scientific Police Had No Access During Hours to the Bodies of the “Suicides” of

Leganés (10/17/2006)

17.What the Mass Media Does Not Dare to Tell (11/10/2006)

18.The Explosive Used in the Massacre is Still Unknown by Casimiro García-Abadillo to

EL MUNDO newspaper (11/20/2006)

19.Police Officers Investigated on Explosives Trafficking in Madrid by Fernando

Lázaro, EL MUNDO newspaper (11/30/2006)

20.Informer Farssaoui Denounces Spanish Police Officers (12/4/2006)

21.Interview with the Investigator and Journalist Luis del Pino by Jorge Hernández to

Tribuna de Salamanca newspaper (12/8/2006)

22.The Repression Begins

23.Let It Snow by Luis del Pino (12/23/2006)

24.ETA Used Hexogen in the Bombing of Barajas Airport

25.Between Extreme Incompetence and Conspiracy to Obstruct the Action of Justice

26."You May Deceive...

27.What the Mass Media Does Not Dare to Tell (II)

28.Three Years On: the Eighth Suicide Gives Testimony before the Court

29.Interview with the Jihadist by Ali Lmrabet to EL MUNDO newspaper (5/25/2005, put

into context in 2/2007)

30.Wasn't it ETA? (4/1/2007)

31.-Who Really Lied (4/16/2007)

32.-Experts Will Ask for Authorization for the Exhumation of Corpses (4/30/2007)

33.-The Incompetence Theory (5/20/2007)

34.-EL MUNDO finishes off the Official Version (6/3/2007)

35.-ETA Ends the So-Called “Cease Fire” Tonight (6/5/2007)

36.-Calls from the Dead (7/20/2007)

37.- More Hot Air (And More, And More...) (7/29/2007)

38.-Police Chatting with Suspects and Their Relatives Hidden to the Judge (8/6/2007)

39.-Let's Talk About Al Qaeda

40.-Mahmoud Slimane Released From Prison

41.-The Disinformation Campaign (9/18/2007)

42.-Bikers and Jews (10/4/2007)

43.-The Spanish Supreme Court, Stormed (10/23/2007)

44.-Reason of anti-State (10/28/2007)

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SUMMARY OF ARTICLES BY THEME:

0. An Introduction to the Case:

Spain’s “Terrorgate”? by Frank J. Gaffney Jr. (5/18/2005)

1. The Alleged Conception of the Coup:

Interview with the Jihadist

Spain Acquits Sept 11 Suspect of Conspiracy Charge

2. The Previous Disinformation Campaign:

The Disinformation Campaign (9/18/2007)

3. The Attack Itself:

3/11 Revisited - Part 1

4. The Cover-Up

4.1. Cover-Up Regarding The Explosives

The Explosive Used in the Massacre is Still Unknown

Between Extreme Incompetence and Conspiracy to Obstruct the Action of Justice

4.2. The Building of an Alternative Version Blaming Islamists

4.2.1 Alleged Fabricated Evidence Planted to Divert the Investigations

The Mystery of 3/11 - Part 2

Police Officers Investigated on Explosives Trafficking in Madrid by Fernando Lázaro,

EL MUNDO newspaper (11/30/2006)

4.2.2 The Big Lie Began to Be Inoculated

Who Really Lied (4/16/2007)

4.2.3 Alleged New Source of the New Explosives

The Mystery of 3/11 - Part 1

Trashorras talks to EL MUNDO by Fernando Múgica, EL MUNDO newspaper.

Lavandera talks to EL MUNDO

4.2.4 Alleged Transport of the New Explosives to Madrid

The Amazing Life and Death of Jamal Ahmidan (I) by Luis del Pino, Chapter 12 of his

book Los Enigmas del 11-M, translation and title by J Aguilar (10/5/2005)

Let It Snow by Luis del Pino (12/23/2006)

4.2.5 How the Usual Suspects were framed using SIM cards and mobile phones

The Mystery of 3/11 - Part 3

Calls from the Dead

More Hot Air (And More, And More...) (7/29/2007)

Police Chatting with Suspects and Their Relatives Hidden to the Judge

4.2.6 How the Usual Suspects were also framed using Police Informers

Informer Farssaoui Denounces Spanish Police Officers (12/4/2006)

Between Extreme Incompetence and Conspiracy to Obstruct the Action of Justice

Three Years On: the Eighth Suicide Gives Testimony before the Court

4.2.7 Other Ways the Usual Suspects Were Framed

Let's Talk About Al Qaeda

4.3 The Cleaning Operation

The Scientific Police Had No Access During Hours to the Bodies of the “Suicides” of

Leganés (10/17/2006)

5. There is a New Guy in Town

The Overlapping Plots by Luis del Pino, Chapter 1 of his book style="font-style: italic">Los Enigmas del 11-M (translation Rojo4).

Did Al-Qaeda participate in the 11-M bombings? by Luis del Pino,

Chapter 2 of his book Los Enigmas del 11-M (translation Rojo4).

3/11 Revisited - Part 1, based on Luis del Pino's book Los

Enigmas del 11-M, Chapter 11.

The Amazing Life and Death of Jamal Ahmidan (I) by Luis del Pino, Chapter 12 of his

book Los Enigmas del 11-M, translation and title by J Aguilar (10/5/2005)

Let's Talk About Al Qaeda by Luis del Pino, Chapter 13 of his book style="font-style: italic">Los Enigmas del 11-M.

Interview with the Investigator and Journalist Luis del Pino by Jorge Hernández to

Tribuna de Salamanca newspaper (12/8/2006)

6. The Smoke Screen Begins to Fall

6.1. The Boric Acid Case

Did ETA pay the Jihad? (9/15/2006)

The Battle Rages (10/4/2006)

What the Mass Media Does Not Dare to Tell (11/10/2006)

6.2. It wasn't Goma-2 ECO

What the Mass Media Does Not Dare to Tell (II)

Wasn't it ETA?

Experts Will Ask for Authorization for the Exhumation of Corpses (4/30/2007)

The Incompetence Theory (5/20/2007)

6.3. It wasn't Goma-2 EC either

EL MUNDO Finishes Off the Official Version

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