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<p>NewsletterShare Close this Share Box154 Comments | Post Comment.Wed Dec. 1, 2010 2:47 PM PST In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.</p>

Police in Hamburg shut down the notorious al-Quds mosque, renamed the Taiba mosque in 2008, led by German-Syrian national and voluntary imam Mamoun Darkazanli. Darkazanli (a.k.a. Abu Ilyas al-Suri) has been a suspected al-Qaeda operative, primarily as a financier and logistician, in the European Union for close to two decades. Long active in al-Qaeda circles, Darkazanli first surfaced on the radar of Western intelligence agencies when he purportedly helped procure a cargo ship named “Jennifer” for Osama bin Laden as early as 1993 (Hamburger Abendblatt, October 16, 2004). Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA- Federal Criminal Police Office) admitted that it had been...

Madrid - By an overwhelming majority, Spain's parliament Tuesday evening approved a bill to curb the country's judges' controversial role in pursuing human rights cases worldwide. The vote was 339 in favour to 8 opposed to a bill to curb the powers of the National Court's to pursue human rights violations around the world. The reform bill stipulates that in the future, the court should only act on cases when Spanish nationals are affected. The huge majority for the bill came after the Socialist government and the conservative opposition had agreed on the text of the reform. The vote comes...

MADRID, Spain - Spain's leading investigating judge issued the first known indictment against Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) in the Sept. 11 attacks on Wednesday, accusing al-Qaida of using the country as a base to plot the devastating strikes on New York and Washington. Investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzon indicted 35 people for terrorist activities connected to bin Laden's al-Qaida network. In a nearly 700-page document, Garzon wrote that Spain served "as a place or base for resting, preparation, indoctrinating, support and financing" of al-Qaida. The indictment charged bin Laden and nine others with membership in a terrorist organization...

Iraq's Ambassador to Spain Had Direct Contact with 9/11 Terrorist and China Sold Iraq Prohibited Missile Fuel through "French Connection" Spain has uncovered the "smoking gun" linking a 9/11 terrorist directly with a high Iraqi official. This previously classified information was reported in the The Observer U.K. this morning. (March 16, 2003) It appears that over 40,000 pages of documents were seized by Spanish authorities at the home of Yusuf Galan and seven other suspects. Galan is in custody and awaiting trial in Madrid. Quoted here are excerpts from the Observer's report: An alleged terrorist accused of helping the 11...