Rabei Osman AP PHOTO

Some relatives and survivors said they could barely bring themselves to be in the same room with the suspects. Others chose to watch on closed-circuit TV in a separate room.

"I hope justice is rendered and that there is a worthy sentence," Pilar Manjon, president of an association of March 11 victims, said before the proceedings got under way. Her son was killed in the bombings.

The first defendant to testify, Rabei Osman, refused to answer any questions from prosecutors. Under questioning from his attorney, the Egyptian then said he had nothing to do with the attack.

Osman, who is accused of being one of three men who masterminded the attack, was arrested in Italy in June 2004. Italian prosecutors have said they tapped phone conversations in which he told an associate: "I'm the thread to Madrid, it's my work."

On the stand, Osman denied being a member of al-Qaida or any other Islamic extremist group, and said he knew alleged members of the Madrid bombing cell only as acquaintances at a mosque in the Spanish capital.

Some 100 experts and 600 witnesses are likely to be called during the trial, among them people whose lives were shattered by the blasts. Testimony is expected to last more than five months and a verdict is expected in late October.

The Japan Times Weekly: Feb. 24, 2007
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