Enlarge imageBy Estelle Shirbon
MADRID (Reuters) - Six Spaniards have been arrested in northern Spain in connection with providing explosives used in the suspected al Qaeda-linked March 11 Madrid train bombings, Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso says.
"All six were linked to the conspiracy that allowed the terrorists to get hold of the explosives that the terrorists used to carry out the tragic attacks," Alonso told a news conference on Wednesday.
The bombings on four packed commuter trains killed 191 people and wounded about 1,900.
Spanish investigators believe the attacks, three days before a general election, were the work of Islamic militants acting in the name of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda. About 20 people, most of them Moroccan, have been formally accused of involvement.
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The six Spaniards arrested on Wednesday included the wife and brother-in-law of former miner Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras, who had been the only Spanish-born suspect still in custody on suspicion of a role in the attacks.
The judge in charge of the investigation has formally accused Suarez of 190 murders.
Another of those detained was Emilio Llano, a security guard at a mine in the northern region of Asturias where the explosive used in the attacks is believed to have originated.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said phone records had shown that a number of those arrested on Wednesday had spoken in January and February to some of the Moroccan suspects in the bombings.
The spokesman said one of the six was a former miner named Javier Gonzalez Diaz and known as "The Dynamiter".
All six will give evidence on Monday before Judge Juan del Olmo, who is leading the probe into the March 11 attacks.
They were being transferred to Madrid police headquarters where they would remain incomunicado until Monday’s hearings.
On Tuesday, Italy arrested an Egyptian, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, who was alleged to have plotted the train bombings.
Spain and Italy hailed it a major breakthrough in the probe.
Alonso said Ahmed, also known as "Mohamed the Egyptian", was "a figure of extreme importance within the structure of al Qaeda in Spain and in the rest of the European Union".
