Spaniard denies supplying train bomb explosives

MADRID, Feb 27 (Reuters) On trial for Europe's deadliest al Qaeda-inspired attack, a former Spanish miner denied he supplied explosives used by Islamist militants in the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people.

Emilio Suarez Trashorras yesterday rejected charges he stole explosives from a mine in northern Spain and exchanged them for hashish with radicals accused of the bombing.

Dynamite from a mine in Asturias where Trashorras worked is suspected to have been used in the bombs that exploded on March 11, 2004, in attacks on crowded commuter trains that also wounded around 2,000 people.

Islamist militants claimed responsibility for the attacks in a video message and said they were in revenge for Spain sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trashorras said the charges were like ''something out of a movie''.

He faces being sentenced to a total of 38,670 years imprisonment, the most of any suspect in the trial, if convicted of all counts against him.

Forty years is the maximum anybody can serve in Spain.

All major suspects have so far denied charges against them in the trial of 20 Arabs and 9 Spaniards that began on February 15.

Moroccan Rafa Zouhier, charged with helping Islamists buy explosives, on Tuesday told the court ''everyone knew'' it was Trashorras who supplied the dynamite.

The Spaniard, in turn, said it was Zouhier who contacted him about where he could get hold of explosives.

ETA LINK? Prosecutors focused on the politically charged question of whether Basque separatists ETA were linked to the attacks.

Trashorras said one of the suspected bombers told him he was a friend of two members of ETA who were arrested driving a van loaded with explosives 11 days before the Madrid bombings.

Trashorras then said he could have misinterpreted the suspect, Jamal Ahmidan, during the telephone conversation.

Ahmidan was one of 7 suspected bombers who blew themselves up in 2004 after being cornered by police in a Madrid apartment.

Spain's former Popular Party (PP) government initially blamed the Madrid bombings on ETA. It was voted out of power three days later in a general election.

Spain's Socialist party, and a Spanish high court investigation of the bombings, rule out any ETA connection.

Zouhier, who knew Ahmidan and was a police informer at the time of the attacks, said there was no connection between ETA and the Islamist cell.

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