Posted on 10/01/2004 10:21:04 AM PDT by knighthawk
MADRID A Saudi cleric funneled money to an Egyptian suspected of being one of the masterminds of the Madrid train bombings in March, Spanish and Italian newspapers reported Thursday.
The Egyptian suspect, Rabei Osman Ahmed, arrested in Milan in June on a request from the Spanish authorities, identified Sheik Salman al-Awdah, a former university professor in Saudi Arabia, as his financier while he was living in Spain between 2001 and 2003, El Mundo of Spain and Corriere della Sera of Italy said in a joint report.
The March 11 train bombings killed 191 people and have been attributed to Islamic militants linked to Al Qaeda.
In a wiretapped conversation before his arrest, Osman Ahmed reportedly said: "The Madrid attack is my project."
The Spanish authorities have never specified what Osman Ahmed's precise role in the Madrid train bombings was believed to be. But they say he was close to a Tunisian named Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet - the alleged ideologue of the bombing cell. Fakhet was among seven suspects who blew themselves up April 3 as the police moved in to arrest them.
The newspaper reports Thursday also quoted wiretapped conversations by Osman Ahmed in May while his Milan apartment was bugged by Italian anti-terrorism police.
He once described Awdah as "everything, everything," the report said.
"I worked for him in Spain. I did really well in that period, in which I earned E2,000 euros a month. There were days I earned E1,000 euros," the papers quoted Osman Ahmed as saying May 26 to a young man he allegedly was recruiting for suicide attacks in Iraq or Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, Awdah spoke on Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television and insisted he did not encourage or call for violence by Muslims. Attempts to reach him in Saudi Arabia were unsuccessful.
Spanish police declined to comment on the newspaper reports, and the Italian authorities were not available.
The reports did not specify whether the money Awdah had sent to the Egyptian was for financing the Madrid train bombings or simply to cover Osman Ahmed's living expenses.
The reports describe Awdah as a friend of Osama bin Laden, who also is Saudi-born. Awdah was jailed during the Gulf War for inciting people against the presence of U.S. forces in the region.
Threat prompts jet landing
A British Airways passenger plane flying from Berlin to London reported an unspecified security threat and made an emergency landing in Amsterdam on Thursday, escorted by two Dutch F-16 jet fighters, The Associated Press reported from Amsterdam.
Rob Stenakker, a Dutch military police spokesman, said it was a routine procedure to send warplanes to escort civilian aircraft in distress.
It was the third time this week that planes had been diverted in Europe as a security precaution.
The plane's 118 passengers and six crew were taken to a far pier in the main terminal building, where they were undergoing a security screening, said an airport spokeswoman, Pamela Kuypers.
Officials declined to say whether the airline had received a bomb threat or discuss the nature of the alert.
U.S.-French terror accords
The United States and France agreed Thursday to cooperate more closely on terrorist cases and combating organized crime, signing new deals that both sides said signaled better relations, The Associated Press reported from Scheveningen, the Netherlands.
Justice Minister Dominique Perben of France said he had also received fresh assurances from Attorney General John Ashcroft of the United States about of three French nationals who are being held in U.S. custody at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
"I asked Mr. Ashcroft to obtain clearer information" about their detention, Perben told reporters. "Ashcroft said he would examine their situation as quickly as possible."
Perben and Ashcroft signed two accords during Thursday's talks, which were held in the margins of a U.S.-EU meeting on terrorism.
Ashcroft said the deals, which update a U.S.-French extradition treaty and facilitate the transfer of terror suspects, were a sign of stronger ties between the two countries following disagreements on how to fight terrorism.
He said the closer cooperation "will allow us to engage in the fight against a wide variety of crimes, not just terrorist offenses, in a way that is up to date and expeditious."
France and the United States have been at loggerheads over how to tackle terrorism and the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Ping
Saudi Arabia is a fiendly country..
It's the Koran...Stupid
If that was NOT a spelling error, I agree with you entirely.
Definately NOT a spelling error!
Atavistic Muhammadans still hung up on being given the boot by Spain. Jews were kicked out too but got over it.
The muzzies seethe in rage about nearly everything..
So why aren't we reading that Awdah's car suddenly blew up or that he slipped and broke his neck on a prayer rug? We say we will allow no safe harboring of terrorists, yet this occurs regularly in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and elsewhere.
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