Free Republic

MADRID, Spain — The fingerprints of the American attorney arrested as a material witness in the Madrid train bombings were found on a plastic shopping bag that held detonators like the ones used in the deadly March 11 terrorist attacks.

MADRID, Spain (AP) - The fingerprints of the American lawyer arrested in Oregon in the Madrid terror bombing probe were found on a bag containing detonators like those used in the March 11 attack, the Spanish government said Friday. The plastic shopping bag was found inside a stolen van left near the train station from which three of the four bombed trains departed, an Interior Ministry official said on condition of anonymity. Brandon Mayfield, a 37-year-old lawyer and former U.S. Army officer who converted to Islam, was taken into custody Thursday by FBI agents, who also searched his home in...

Law-enforcement officials detain an Oregon man they say may be linked to Europe’s 9/11 FBI agents today detained a Portland, Ore., lawyer after receiving evidence from Spanish authorities that the man’s fingerprints allegedly were found on bomb-related evidence associated with the March 11 railway attack in Madrid that killed 191 people and wounded 2,000 people, Newsweek has learned. The arrest of the lawyer was described by federal law-enforcement authorities as a major investigative breakthrough that for the first time suggests links between an individual inside the United States and the Madrid bombing — the worst act of terrorist violence since...

<p>WASHINGTON  — FBI agents arrested a Portland, Ore., man Thursday as part of the investigation into the deadly train bombings in Spain, federal officials said.</p> <p>Brandon Bieri Mayfield, a U.S. citizen, was taken into custody on a material witness warrant, said a senior law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The arrest, first reported in Newsweek, is the first known in the United States with connections to the March 11 bombings in Madrid.</p>

Vatican, Apr. 30 (CWNews.com) - A Vatican official has rejected the bid by Muslim groups to share the use of a Spanish cathedral which was once an Islamic mosque. Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, told the AsiaNews service that the Catholic Church could not agree to a demand advanced by Islamic leaders in Cordoba, who sought to use the city's cathedral for Muslim prayer services. The prelate remarked that a cathedral cannot be regarded in the same way as an inter-denominational airport chapel. While recognizing that the building was first constructed as a...