After two years and one month of interrogations and examination of evidence, Juan del Olmo, the Spanish judge in charge of the investigations into the 2004 Madrid bombings, has charged 29 suspects of participating in the terrorist attack. Among the accused are 3 men who, together with the 7 suspects who blew themselves up in a flat in Madrid soon after the attacks, Judge del Olmo believes participated directly in planting the bombs on the trains . Of the 29 accused, six have been charged with 191 counts of murder and 1,755 counts of attempted murder.

The 1,460-page indictment signed by the Judge concludes that contrary to the Popular Party’s first stance, and to the insinuations made by certain members throughout the parliamentary commission of ETA involvement, no concrete evidence has been found to suggest that Basque terrorist group ETA were involved in the Madrid terrorist attacks.

Del Olmo concludes that the members of the group who planned and carried out the bombings were inspired by websites encouraging attacks on countries like Spain who at the time were participating in the invasion of Iraq. Their aim was to force governments to withdraw their troops from Iraq. In his long report, Judge del Olmo claims, that in 2003, just after the terrorist attacks in Casablanca, Aznar was warned by secret services of the very real threat of a terrorist attack in Spain.

The suspect facing most charges is the Spanish miner accused of supplying the terrorists with the explosives needed to make the bombs which were then placed in rucksacks and detonated by mobile phones. He is accused of collaborating with an armed band in the murder of 192 people: the 191 victims of the train bombs and the policeman who died when caught in the blast during the police raid which led the 7 suspects in a flat in Leganes, Madrid, to blow themselves up.