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Next day's news from UK:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=519243

US lawyer is arrested over link to bombs in Madrid
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
08 May 2004

An American lawyer under investigation for possible links to al-Qa'ida was being held as a material witness to the Madrid train bombings yesterday after a fingerprint believed to be his was found on a bag of detonators in Spain, government and law enforcement officials in both countries said.

The lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, 37, was arrested at his home outside Portland, Oregon, on Thursday and detained at a secret location. The working theory is that Mr Mayfield, an army veteran and practising Muslim, may have been recruited to teach the Madrid train bombers how to build explosives.

He has not been charged with a crime and there were conflicting reports last night on the certainty of the fingerprint match. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed only that it executed two search warrants in the Portland area. It has not named Mr Mayfield, or offered any comment.

But off the record federal agents told reporters that Mr Mayfield was being held as a material witness, a status that allows them to hold him more or less indefinitely, and in secret, without charge. They said the investigation was at a preliminary stage, and was continuing.

Mr Mayfield's family confirmed he had been arrested while tending his tomato patch at his home in the Portland suburb of Aloha. They said the FBI had searched his home and his law offices, and questioned several family members.

His family said he was innocent. "I think the reason they are holding him is because he is of the Muslim faith and because he is not super happy with the Bush administration," Mr Mayfield's brother Kent told the Reuters news agency. "So if that's a crime, well, you can burn half of us."

The possibility that a United States citizen might be involved in an al-Qa'ida plot has no known precedent. Information was sketchy last night as to the nature of Mr Mayfield's military training - whether, for example, he had expertise in explosives - and the degree to which federal agents had been tracking his movements. It was also not known whether Mr Mayfield had been to Spain recently.

Unnamed US and Spanish law enforcement officials told the Los Angeles Times that an army veteran fitting Mr Mayfield's description had been under investigation for possible links to al-Qa'ida.

Mr Mayfield trained at Fort Lewis, Washington - the same base where the Washington sniper John Allan Muhammad learned to handle firearms. Mr Mayfield met his Egyptian-born wife there and converted to Islam in 1989. The army helped put him through college and he passed the Oregon bar exam in 2000. Neighbours and friends said yesterday that his law practice specialised in immigration and child custody cases.

One of Mr Mayfield's clients in a custody case, Jeffrey Battle, was one of seven Portland-area Muslims sent to prison last year on charges that they were conspiring to wage a holy war on behalf of al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. But Mr Mayfield had no connection with the criminal case.

The clue leading to Mr Mayfield's arrest was a fingerprint, or fingerprints, found on a plastic bag containing detonators of the type used in the 11 March train bombing attacks.

The bag was recovered from a stolen van in the Madrid suburb of Alcala de Henares, which is where three of the four bombed trains began their fateful journeys.

After Spanish investigators drew a blank on the prints, the FBI matched it. A special evidence analysis team from the FBI travelled to Spain to help with the case, but it was not clear how Mr Mayfield's prints had come to be on file.

There appear to have been doubts about the conclusiveness of the evidence, because Mr Mayfield was not arrested immediately.

A Spanish investigator told the LA Times earlier this week that the match could not be confirmed. Last night, Spanish government officials told reporters they believed the prints belonged to Mr Mayfield, but they spoke on condition of anonymity and did not issue a formal statement.

Spanish authorities have charged 18 people and jailed 12 of them in connection with the Madrid bombings, which killed 191 people and injured hundreds of others. Six suspects have been charged with mass murder and the rest with collaboration or belonging to a terrorist organisation.

Another seven suspected bombers blew themselves up last month after they were cornered by Spanish police in a hideout filled with explosives.

In the US, the FBI and other agencies have warned that al-Qa'ida might attempt an attack or attacks on public transport systems this summer. It is not known whether the warning stems from the investigation into Mr Mayfield, or from another source.