Italy asks for 14 years for Madrid bomb suspect

MILAN, Oct 27 (Reuters) An Italian prosecutor called today for an Egyptian accused of helping to plan the 2004 Madrid train bombings to be sentenced to 14 years in prison.

The accused, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, had close links to the commuter train attackers and has claimed credit for the bombings that killed 191 people in the Spanish capital, prosecutor Maurizio Romanelli told a court in Milan.

Ahmed, also known as ''Mohamed the Egyptian,'' was arrested in Milan three months after the March 11, 2004, bombings which were blamed on militant Islamists.

Ahmed has denied any involvement in the attacks, which also wounded more than 2,000 people.

He and alleged accomplice Yahia Mouad Mohamed Rayah are charged with ''subversive association with the aim of international terrorism'' under a law enacted after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

''All the people involved in the attacks in Madrid were closely linked to Rabei,'' Romanelli said in presenting the indictment to a panel of judges, and demanded the suspect be sentenced to 14 years in jail.

A Spanish court will begin trying 29 people accused in the train bombings in February. That trial is expected to end by July, with the verdict handed down in October.

The defendants, mostly Spanish or Moroccans, were charged with murder and other crimes related to the bombings, which came three days before a national election that saw the defeat of the conservative government.

Ahmed was not in Spain during the attacks. He arrived in Italy the previous December and had been working odd jobs before his arrest.

Prosecutors have said Spanish police stumbled upon Ahmed when they found a copy of his Italian cellular telephone number during a probe into the chief suspects in Madrid. Italian police began taping Ahmed's phone conversations in April 2004.

Reuters PB DB2200