Lost in translation

During these last sessions of the Madrid bombing trial, words like dinitrotoluene, titadine, nitroglycerine, and Goma2 have turned the proceedings into a chemistry class in which the lawyers, judge and jury, like scientists, can't afford to allow one detail to escape.

Luisa Barrenechea is a lawyer and researcher of European counter-terrorism at FRIDE in Madrid.Eight experts declared that what exploded (according to numerous samples which they took from the scenes of the attacks) was unsurprisingly "dynamite". They differed with respect to the degree of contamination of the explosive samples, and noted that the specific type "explosive cannot be determined because after the explosion component additives disappeared".

We also knew that each one of the 13 bombs used in the rail attacks on Madrid carried a load of around 10 kilos, while the bomb that blew up the flat in Leganés was 30 kilos.

The forensic doctors and psychiatrists who evaluated José Emilio Suárez Trashorras (accused of facilitating the sale of the explosives to the alleged bombers) agreed that despite his mental state (paranoid schizophrenia), he would have been aware of the possible consequences of the sale of explosives. He is capable of distinguishing "between the good and the bad, and his cognitive functions were not so skewed as to not understand the consequences of his deeds".

Read her previous reports from the trial proceedings on 30 March, 13 April, 20 April, 27 April and 29 May.Also analysed in the last sessions of the trial was the telephone conversation that occurred six days after the bomb blast between the police informant Rafa Zouhier (now amongst the accused) and his police contact, "Víctor". Zouhier told Víctor that he "was sure of the participation of Jamal Ahmidan in the attacks". After saying that Ahmidan possessed "detonators, remote controls, dynamite", Zouhier described Ahmidan as "very radical", claiming that he had sent a large "amount of money to Chechnya and Afghanistan", and "was in the jail in Morocco, where he made contacts, where he was transformed. Now, he came to Spain to roll". This was the first time Zouhier, accused of collaborating with the bombers, had mentioned Ahmidan to the police.

The court also watched two videos: the first of the registry of the house in Morata de Tajuña (where the bombs were prepared); the second, a video found in the house in Leganés of field training exercises in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

Recent proceedings were not without controversy. The testimony of two official Spanish translators, who transcriptions of an incriminating conversation between the accused Rabei Osman and his disciple Yehia Ragheh, points to the difficulties inherent in such a sprawling, complex investigation.

The translators claimed that the Italian translation (Rabei Osman and Yehia were based in Italy) of the conversation "has serious errors", and "that some phrases have been misinterpreted through ignorance of the cultural connotations of the Arabic language and of historical or cultural references or citations", going so far as to "furnish the discussion with a context that does not agree with the original".

At no instance in the recording, for instance, could "the word al-Qaida be heard". Nor was there any evidence to determine the strength and context of the use of the word "jihad". Judge Javier Gómez Bermúdez argued that it "will be the court that judges the sense of the word jihad - whether meant as an inner, spiritual struggle or as a war, campaign of terrorism". Sins of commission in the translation make such judgements all the more difficult.

They recognized that if their was substance to Rabei Osman's statements that "they were my people who did it [the attacks]" and "I knew what was going to happen", there would be little doubt regarding his relation with the 11-M bombings. It will now be up to the court to determine to what degree Rabei Osman is implicated in the attacks, and whether he was in fact the "intellectual" author of the bombings.

The oral portion of the trial is now entering its final phase. Soon the court will consider more closely the sentences sought for each defendant on the basis of evidence presented against them in previous weeks. The massive trial, which has showcased Spain's patient, law-based approach to dealing with terrorism, is now nearing its end.

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