March 11 bomb attack memorials held amid questioning of judicial inquiry

Madrid on Monday paid homage to the victims of the March 11, 2004 terrorist attacks that claimed 191 lives and left 1,800 wounded in a series of explosions on commuter trains.

Several remembrance ceremonies took place, a day after the eighth anniversary of the bombings so as to not clash with demonstrations in the capital on Sunday against the government’s plans for labor reform.

At 9am, in the Puerta del Sol, a five-minute silence was observed by politicians and representatives of victims associations. The Madrid regional premier, Esperanza Aguirre, and the mayor, Ana Botella, placed a wreath under the plaque at City Hall that commemorates the victims and those citizens who aided emergency services in the wake of the atrocity.

Shortly after the ceremony, Botella attended another service at the monument to the victims in Atocha station, where the bombs had been primed to detonate simultaneously.

In spite of the solemnity of the occasion, the acts were not without controversy. The 11-M Association of Victims Affected by Terrorism had held its homage a day earlier, accompanied by the UGT and CCOO unions before the demonstrations in the capital. The Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT), meanwhile, held its own ceremony at the Forest of the Departed in the Retiro park, accompanied by Justice Minister Alberto Ruíz-Gallardón and Botella.

Pilar Manjón, of 11-M, has called for an end to what she termed the “repulsive manipulation of fanatical conspiracy theorists” over the investigation. “They will not accept that the attacks were committed by jihadists.”

Ángeles Pedraza, of AVT, and Ángeles Domínguez, of the Association for the Aid of Victims of 11-M, have both demanded that investigations continue. “It is not a closed case,” they said. “Justice has not been done because the crime scene disappeared and as a consequence we don’t know what kind of explosives were used.”

Their complaint centers on the discovery of a train carriage that was involved in the March 11 attacks at a Madrid rail yard, owned by maintenance company Tafesa. The association described the decision of the attorney-general, Eduardo Torres-Dulce, to investigate the remains of the carriage as “a ray of hope.” Torres-Dulce, however, stated on Monday that the case was closed and any investigation into the carriage would only serve to ensure there had been no obstruction of justice by anybody trying to keep the carriage hidden. The attorney-general said the ruling on the perpetrators of the attacks “is indisputable.” He also offered to meet with Manjón.

In the wake of the attacks, the Popular Party government of José María Aznar was adamant that ETA was responsible. Subsequent investigations found nothing to link the Basque terrorist organization with the attacks, which were attributed to a radical Islamist cell inspired by Al Qaeda. The international terrorist organization, then led by Osama bin Laden, supposedly claimed responsibility on a tape found after the bombings. However, its authenticity was never verified and the orator, Abu Dujan al-Afgani, who claimed to be the group’s military spokesman in Europe, was not known by security services.

Further conspiracy theories pushed by the PP and backed by the AVT centered on collusion between the Spanish secret service and ETA to remove Aznar from power, while accusations that a cover-up had been carried out on the wreckages of the bombed trains to hide evidence reached the Madrid courts. 

The PP’s refusal to entertain any other notion than an ETA attack is widely viewed as the reason for its loss to the Socialists in the general election of March 14, 2004. 

A police explosives expert told investigators that a device recovered intact was “completely different” to anything used by ETA. “It was similar to devices used by terrorists in the Middle East.”

In October, 2007 21 people were sentenced over the attacks. A further four chief suspects killed themselves in a suicide bomb blast in Madrid in April 2004, which also claimed the life of a police special forces agent