MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Spain recalls Atocha

Spain commemorated the first anniversary of the Madrid train bombings yesterday with tears, church bells and silent tributes to the 191 people who died in al Qaeda's worst attack in Europe.

Trains and buses came to a halt as Spaniards observed five minutes of silence, flags flew at half-mast and mourners left candles and flowers outside Madrid's Atocha station ? scene of two of the blasts. One of many notes left with the flowers said: "Today, after a year, we haven't forgotten you."

Relatives of some victims stayed home or left the country to avoid reliving raw memories of the attacks, which helped oust the conservatives from power and fuelled a year of recriminations within Spain's political class.

"The world mourns with you," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a news conference in Madrid, where other leaders gathered including Afghan President Hamid Karzai and King Mohammed of Morocco. It was the Moroccan monarch's first visit to Spain since the attack and his trip was intended to reinforce a message that the two neighbours must bury past differences to tackle terrorist threats. Spain's leading Islamic body issued a religious order declaring Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network to have forsaken Islam by backing attacks such as the Madrid bombings.

"Any group that invokes Islam to justify terrorist attacks places itself outside of Islam," Mansur Escudero, secretary general of the Islamic Commission of Spain, told the press. Imams condemned terrorism at prayers yesterday at Spanish mosques.

Spain's King Juan Carlos led the nation in five minutes of silence at the "Forest of the Departed," where a tree had been planted for each of the 191 dead plus a police special agent who died when seven bombing suspects blew themselves up in April. Dozens of people, some with tears in their eyes, poured through the gates when the monument opened to the public later.

More than 2,000 people were injured and many others still bear psychological scars. Some 650 churches throughout the Madrid area rang their bells for five minutes from 7:37am local time, the same time that 10 bombs fashioned out of stolen dynamite began exploding on four commuter trains.

The bombings rocked Spain three days before an election, in which voters backed the Socialists in an upset that political analysts attributed in part to the way the Popular Party government at first blamed the Basque separatist group ETA. The attacks also reminded voters of the government's unpopular decision to send troops to Iraq.

Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero ordered the troops home immediately after taking office.

A special parliamentary commission to study what happened and recommend how to prevent future attacks produced partisan bickering and failed to reach a consensus.Judge Juan del Olmo, who is investigating the March 11, 2004 train attacks blamed on Islamist radicals, released 21-year-old Jaouad el Bouzrouti but ordered him to appear in court each week and not to leave the country. Bouzrouti was detained Tuesday near his home in Fuenlabrada, a Madrid suburb. Del Olmo questioned him for four hours yesterday.

Twenty-two people have been jailed in connection with the Madrid bombings on preliminary charges of mass murder or terrorism, most of whom are Moroccan. Another 52 detainees have been released but are still considered suspects. Del Olmo said Bouzrouti had been in phone contact with two suspects who fled an apartment where seven suspects blew themselves up on April 3 as police moved in to arrest them.