Intelligence and anti-terrorism services in Britain and other European countries have been given the names of several Islamist radicals suspected of taking part in the Madrid train bombings who have fled Spain, according to western intelligence officials.
Names were given to senior security and intelligence officers from Britain, France, Germany and Italy during a summit with their Spanish counterparts in Madrid on Monday, though international arrest warrants are not believed to have been issued.
The five countries’ intelligence services have agreed to share some of the investigative work into the bombings which, according to revised forensic estimates, killed 190 people.
El Mundo newspaper reported on Tuesday that British officials had agreed to look into a group of more than 20 Islamist militants, known as the ”eternal lions”, who fled Morocco after the Casablanca suicide bombings last May and are believed to have links with Islamist radicals in Britain.
However, Whitehall sources played down the significance of the report, and questioned the existence of the eternal lions.
A list of 24 members of the group has been circulating in Europe for several days, according to El Mundo.
Britain’s intelligence services would also concentrate on finding leads from sub-Saharan Africa, the report said.
Germany would try to tease out any connections between Madrid and the September 11 plotters in Hamburg, while also investigating any possible Turkish angles. French intelligence would focus on Morocco and Algeria, and the Italians on Tunisia and Libya, El Mundo said.
The judge in charge of the investigation, Juan del Olmo, has remanded in custody a former quarryman, José Emilio Suárez Trashorras, who allegedly provided the 100kg of explosives used in the bombs. Suárez was reported to have been paid â,¬7 000 and a quantity of hashish in return for either showing the terrorists where to steal the explosives or stealing them himself.
Of the nine men jailed and placed under formal investigation so far, five face charges of terrorism and mass murder and four of collaboration.
The Spanish government announced strict security measures to protect world leaders attending today’s state funeral for the victims at Madrid’s Almudena cathedral. Tony Blair, Prince Charles, the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, the French president, Jacques Chirac, and the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, are among those expected.
Spain’s acting prime minister, José MarÃÂa Aznar, has reportedly given orders for any aircraft threatening the country to be shot down if all other attempts to stop it fail.
The revised death toll released on Tuesday also revealed that 47 of the dead were foreigners, half of them thought to be immigrants without work or residency permits. Forensic scientists said they had found no evidence of suicide bombers. – Guardian Unlimited Â