Trial begins in Spain for Al Qaeda suspects

MADRID -- After an eight-year investigation, Spanish prosecutors opened Europe's biggest trial of Al Qaeda suspects yesterday, in a case that includes three defendants accused of playing a supporting role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Spanish authorities imposed extra security for the trial, including a retrofitted courthouse designed especially for terrorism cases. Police helicopters and guards with machine guns patrolled the grounds. In the courtroom, all but one of the 24 defendants sat on benches inside a large bulletproof-glass cage that isolated them from their lawyers, prosecutors, and the three-judge panel hearing the case.

Prosecutors say the suspects were part of a cell of Al Qaeda followers based in Spain who raised money and recruited fighters for radical Islamic causes in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Indonesia.

Most face charges of financing terrorism and belonging to a terrorist organization, but three are specifically accused of assisting two of the ringleaders of the Sept. 11 attacks by organizing a rendezvous in a Spanish coastal town two months before the hijackings.

The defendants include Syrian-born Imad Yarkas, the alleged ringleader of Al Qaeda in Spain, and two associates -- Driss Chebli, a 33-year-old Moroccan, and Syrian-born Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun, 39. They are accused of aiding Mohamed Atta, the chief suicide pilot who flew a jetliner into the World Trade Center.

The 21 other defendants are charged with terrorism-related offenses not related to the Sept. 11 plot.

The proceedings are the biggest trial of alleged Al Qaeda militants ever held in Europe and make Spain only the second country after Germany to try suspects in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11.

Spanish investigators amassed 300 boxes of evidence and an estimated 100,000 pages of documents, which were stacked along one wall in the courtroom. Much of the evidence in the case is circumstantial, and each defendant has asserted his innocence.

The challenges facing prosecutors became apparent during questioning of the first witness, Luis Jose Galan, a Spanish convert to Islam who faces up to 18 years in prison for allegedly belonging to Al Qaeda and possessing weapons illegally.

In a feisty exchange with the lead prosecutors and presiding judge, Galan acknowledged owning guns and said he knew most of the other defendants. But he said he had legal permits for his weapons and had merely met his fellow suspects at a mosque, insisting that none of his conduct had been illegal.

Galan parried questions about a trip he took to Indonesia in the summer of 2001, shortly after Yarkas, the alleged cell ringleader, had visited the country in what prosecutors charge was part of a recruiting network for fighters.

While acknowledging that he traveled to Indonesia to pursue ''business opportunities," he said he was unable to recall many other details, including how he got there, how long he stayed, and which parts of the country he visited.

Yarkas is scheduled to testify next week and prosecutors are expected to ask him about his alleged ties to Atta and coconspirator Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni citizen and key planner in the plot.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.