Judge jails 2 more suspects in Madrid bombings

MADRID -- Wednesday a Spanish judge charged two more suspects, including the first woman, in connection with the Madrid, Spain, commuter-train bombings.\nThe charges bring the number of those accused to 11 in the March 11 attacks killing at least 190 and wounded about 1,800.\nJudge Juan del Olmo charged and ordered jailed Moroccans Rafa Zuher and Naima Oulad Akcha after questioning them separately for more than six hours. They were arrested over the weekend. They face allegations of collaborating with a terrorist group.\nCourt officials said both suspects condemned the March 11 railway bombings and denied they had any links to the attacks.\nSpanish authorities have arrested 15 suspects in connection with the March 11 railway bombings -- 11 Moroccans, two Indians, one Algerian and a Spaniard. Thirteen remain in custody, 11 of whom now have been charged and jailed pending further investigation. One Moroccan and the Algerian were released.\nSo far, five of the suspects have been charged with mass murder and belonging to a terrorist group and six have been charged with collaborating with a terrorist group.\nAll but the two Indians are being held in solitary confinement without access to lawyers or family members.\nWith the exception of the Spaniard, all of those charged have denied any involvement in the attacks.\nThe charges stop short of a formal indictment, but suggest the court has strong evidence against the suspects. They can be held in jail for two years while investigators gather more evidence.\nNaima Oulad Akcha was the first woman to be arrested in the case. She is sister to Khalid Oulad Akcha who was in jail elsewhere in Spain in a separate case, but was detained last weekend and brought to Madrid under Del Olmo's orders.\nKhalid Oulad Akcha and another person arrested over the weekend, Faisal Ullac, are expected to be questioned by the judge either Thursday or Friday.\nSuspicion in the attacks has focused on an alleged Morocco-based terrorist cell believed to have links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network -- and on al Qaeda itself.\nInvestigators have analyzed a videotape in which a man claiming to speak on behalf of al Qaeda said the group carried out the Madrid attack in reprisal for Spain's backing of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.\nThree days after the bombings, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's conservative government crashed to a surprise defeat in general elections that brought the anti-war Socialist party to power.\nJailed Moroccan immigrant Jamal Zougam is the prime suspect in the bombings. Spanish court documents have linked him to members of an al Qaeda cell in Spain.\nUnconfirmed news reports Wednesday said Spanish police had identified five of eight people they suspect carried out the attacks, including the alleged cell leader.\nCiting unidentified police sources, El Mundo said police had issued arrest orders for three of the five while the other two are thought to be Zougam and fellow jailed Moroccan Abderrahim Zbakh.\nZbakh, a chemical science graduate from the University of Tetuan, Morocco, is suspected of having made the bombs in a Madrid apartment, El Mundo said.\nThe Periodico de Catalunya daily said Zougam's fingerprints were found in a van that was discovered just hours after the bombings near a train station outside Madrid. Detonators and a cassette tape of verses from the Quran were found in the van.