Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Hechos Probados....The Telephones And The Cards

The card contained in the telephone used in the Vallecas bomb had been supplied by Jamal Zougam, one of the owners of the shop Jawal Mundo Telecom – Locutorio Siglo Nuevo which was located at 17 Calle Tribulete in Madrid. The card formed part of a pack of thirty prepaid cards from the company AMENA which had been supplied together with Motorola C450 telephones. The packs containing telephone and cards had been provided by a company called Uritel 2000 S.A. to another called Sindhu Enterprise S.L. It was this latter company who separated the cards from the telephones, and who sold the cards to the shop of Jamal Zougam. Eight of the cards from this batch have been found to have a direct relationship to the train bombings.

On the 3rd March 2004 the shop Decomisos Top, located at 42 Avenida Real de Pinto in Madrid, sold to a still unidentified member of the group responsible for the bombings nine telephones of the same brand and model as that contained in the Vallecas bomb. Three of these were handed over on the same day, and the other six were collected the following day after they had been “liberated” to enable their use with any telephone company. This was because the telephones were designed for use only with cards from Movistar. Decomisos Top gave the task of liberating the phones to another company, Ayman S.L.. A tenth telephone was sold on the 8th March. Seven of these telephones have been identified as having been used together with cards from the batch supplied to Jamal Zougam’s shop. One of these telephones was that discovered in the Vallecas bomb.

The cards used in these telephones were activated, without calls being made or received, between 2:24 on the 10th March 2004 and 2:24 on the 11th. The activation was carried out in the area covered by an antenna located in Morata de Tajuña. No activity has been detected for these cards since the 11th March 2004, because they were used as timers in some of the other bombs. In the area covered by the antenna of Morata is located the property rented by Jamal Ahmidam on the 28th January 2004.

In addition, at least nine of the thirty AMENA cards were used by members of the group who carried out the bombings. Jamal Zougam was using one at the time of his detention; another was used by those who committed suicide in Leganés to make farewell calls to their families.



Footnote: The whole investigation of the train bombings is an object lesson on what information you can gather based on evidence from mobile phone usage. The telephone and card found in the unexploded bomb led directly to the first arrests in the case, and to a dramatic change in the public perception regarding authorship of the bombings.

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