Spanish prosecutor seeks 'exemplary sentence' in closing arguments at al-Qaida trial By DANIEL WOOLLS Associated Press Writer MADRID, Spain A prosecutor Monday described the accused leader of a Spanish al-Qaida cell as being close to Osama bin Laden, but the defendant's attorney said prosecutors have presented nothing to back up charges he helped plot the Sept. 11 attacks.
Both sides gave closing arguments at the trial of 24 suspected members of al-Qaida, three of whom are accused of using Spain as a staging ground for the suicide airliner attacks of 2001. A verdict is expected in September. Chief prosecutor Pedro Rubira said the alleged leader of the cell, Syrian-born Spaniard Imad Yarkas, was "closely linked to Islamic terrorism," in particular the cell in Hamburg, Germany, accused of carrying out the attacks, and carried out "acts that favored" the massacre. Rubira said Yarkas may have been far geographically from bin Laden but "the distance in terms of persons was just one," referring to fugitive Syrian Mustafa Setmariam, said to be a senior al-Qaida operative and also indicted in Spain over Sept. 11. Yarkas's attorney, Jacobo Teijelo, said Spain had presented no evidence against his client other than wiretapped conversations with other alleged militants and had no jurisdiction to try him anyway; and said the United States had not even asked to question Yarkas, much less indict him. Teijelo argued specifically that the prosecution had said nothing to explain how Yarkas is alleged to have arranged a last-minute planning meeting in Spain in July 2001 for two key Sept. 11 figures _ the main charge against Yarkas. "How did he help these two people?" Teijelo asked the court. Earlier Rubira asked the court to issue an "exemplary sentence" against the accused cell members and said this was the way to fight Islamic terror, not by invading countries and setting up detention camps. His comments were a veiled criticism of the U.S. war on terror. "The world will be watching when you issue a sentence," he told the three-judge panel. "Be aware that what you do not only affects Spain but affects the whole world." Spain is the only country other than Germany to put Sept. 11 suspects on trial. The only person charged in the United States with involvement in the attacks, Zacarias Moussaoui, pleaded guilty in April. The prosecution is seeking jail terms of more than 74,000 years each for Yarkas and two other suspects accused of using Spain as a staging ground to help plot the Sept. 11 attacks. Under Spanish law, the maximum time they could serve on a terrorism conviction is 40 years. Spain has no death penalty or life imprisonment. The 21 other suspects are accused of terrorism and other offenses but not of planning for Sept. 11. They face sentences of nine to 21 years if convicted. Yarkas and Driss Chebli, a Moroccan, are accused of arranging a meeting in the Tarragona region of Spain in July 2001 at which alleged suicide pilot Mohamed Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged plot coordinator, allegedly met to decide on the final details of the attack, including the date. Both suspects have denied any involvement in Sept. 11 or al-Qaida and testified that they did not know Atta or Binalshibh. 050627 173958 Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. FAIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with "Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976. 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