afrol News, 5 December - A Moroccan court has slapped a man with 10 years imprisonment for his alleged involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings that left hundreds dead.

Mr Ahmidan was charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation and supplying equipment to those who placed bombs in four Madrid commuter trains on 11 March, 2004, killing almost 200 people.

The government news agency said prosecution cited Mr Hicham Ahmidan's membership into a terrorist group and his role in providing material used in an act of terrorism. "Mr Ahmidan was not in Spain when the attacks took place, but his fingerprints were found on a car used by the attackers," the agency said.

However, his lawyer Ali Ammar denied the charges saying some of the bomb plotters were Mr Ahmidan's cousins but his client knew nothing of their plans and was in another country when the attacks took place.

Mr Ammar said his client should be acquitted for lack of evidence, pointing out his arrest in Madrid in March 2004 was five days before the attacks took place in the European city.

Reports said three weeks after the attack, seven men, including two suspected ringleaders of the bombings, blew themselves up in an apartment after police closed in on them in their hideout place.

Last year, a court sentenced two Moroccans and a Spaniard to 42,924 years in jail after they were convicted on multiple counts.

Mr Ahmidan is currently serving a five-year sentence for international drugs trafficking.

Meanwhile, the trial of another Moroccan allegedly linked to the Madrid bombings, Abdellilah Ahriz, was postponed for two weeks. Many of those who have been convicted for the bombings were Moroccans.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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