Large Turnout for Spanish Elections
Investigators Find Evidence Linking Madrid Bombings to Al Qaeda-Backs Cell
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 14, 2004; 1:51 PM
MADRID, March 14 -- Angry and grieving Spaniards flocked to polling places in huge numbers Sunday to choose a new government, just 72 hours after a series of deadly train bombings killed 200 people and wounded more than 1,400. Meanwhile, investigators probing the backgrounds of five men detained for the attacks have found evidence of links to an al Qaeda-backed Islamic extremist cell operating on Spanish soil.
The interior minister today identified the three Moroccans and two Indian nationals who were tied to the bomb plot because of a cellular telephone discovered in a gym bag filled with undetonated explosives. One of the Moroccans, 30-year-old Jamal Zougam, had been listed as an al Qaeda operative in a Spanish judge's indictment last fall of Osama bin Laden and others for the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York on Sept. 11, 2001, officials said. Zougam was not indicted.
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The tape was discovered in a garbage can in a public park near a mosque after a telephone tip-off to a Spanish television station. On the tape, the speaker says that last week's attacks in Madrid were "a response to your collaboration with the criminal Bush and his allies." He also warned, "If you do not stop your collaboration, more and more blood will flow." Spanish officials have not released a copy of the videotape, but provide a transcript to the media.
The growing indications that an al Qaeda cell carried out the attack -- and not the Basque separatist group ETA, which the government originally and emphatically blamed -- has caused widespread anger here. Many Spaniards accused the government of a "cover-up" and withholding information, for fear of a public backlash in today's voting for a new prime minister and parliament.
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At midday, Spanish elections officials said turnout was at 40 percent, an increase of more than five percent over elections four years ago.
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