Firm sentences for Al Qa’ida members will set strong precedent, attorney says

El Pais Spain | JOSÉ YOLDI

Madrid

Prosecutor Pedro Rubira urged the High Court Monday to issue an “exemplary sentence” against 24 alleged Al Qa’ida members, arguing that firm judicial action against international terrorism is more effective than wars or detention camps.

In his closing arguments, Rubira told High Court justices that “all the world will be watching” when they pass sentence on the 24 suspects, accused of forming the Spanish cell of Al Qa’ida that assisted in planning the September 11, 2001, attacks against New York and Washington. Rubira is demanding sentences worth over 74,000 years in prison for the suspects, who were arrested in late 2001 and who went on trial in April.

“There are alternatives to what we are seeing each day in the fight against Islamic terrorism: we do not need detention camps, we do not need wars, what we need are precisely these kinds of trials that strengthen the rule of law,” the prosecutor said, referring implicitly to the US terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Iraq war. “Spain has not just been a witness; it has been a victim of large-scale attacks and what it has done is carry out these judicial processes. This strengthens states against Islamic terrorism.”

He stressed that the court’s sentence will have effects not just in Spain but around the world because of the international nature of Islamic terrorism.

Among the suspects is the alleged leader of the Spanish Al Qa’ida cell, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, who is believed to have been close to Bin Laden and Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 suicide massacre.

The Spanish cell is also believed to have recruited Islamic extremists to be trained in Afghanistan. One of the suspects is a journalist for the Al-Jazeera satellite television channel, Taysir Alouni, who is accused of having aided Bin Laden’s network.

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