The Madrid Train Bombings....Five Years On

I still remember very clearly the day of the Madrid train bombings, the 5th anniversary passed just last week. The impact of what happened on the 11th March 2004 was tremendous, and even though I was away from my adopted home city at the time I still picked up much of the atmosphere of a city in shock. Then came the reaction, and the subsequent rise in tension as it became clear over the following couple of days that the Spanish government was still trying to maintain that ETA were responsible for the bombings even as clear evidence of Islamist authorship was emerging. I watched live on CNN the footage of the demonstration outside of the headquarters of the governing Partido Popular on the day before the general election; images which I believe many people in Spain never got to see.

That day, March 14th, was a turning point. The administration led by Jose Maria Aznar was thrown out of office on a wave of indignation over their attempts to mislead public opinion for short term electoral benefit. That should have been the end of attempts to use the Madrid bombings for political advantage. Unfortunately it was just the beginning. On the same day that the outgoing caretaker government handed over power to the new administration the first article of what were to develop into the conspiracy theories about the bombings appeared in El Mundo. That marked the beginning of a still unfinished campaign that seeks to use the bombings as an instrument of political revenge for the election result that followed.

Now conspiracy theories surrounding terrorist attacks are common, particularly in cases when many of the perpetrators are dead or missing. The difference in the case of Spain is that the conspiracy theorists had the full backing of the principal opposition party and the second biggest selling daily newspaper in the country. You have to try and imagine a situation where the Democrats and any major media outlet accuse the Bush administration of organising 9-11. Or where the Conservatives in Britain claim that the 2005 bombings in London were the work of an alliance between Tony Blair, the IRA and foreign intelligence services. In short, the reaction of those who were caught out trying to manipulate public opinion was to try and do more of the same; but on a bigger scale!

I’d never witnessed anything quite like it anywhere. I know of course that there are those who regard a major terrorist attack as a political opportunity, there is sadly no shortage of examples, but the campaign organised in Spain was still quite shocking. There was a sustained attempt to discredit both the investigation into the bombings and the subsequent trial, the objective always being to sow the maximum doubt possible about the authorship of the attacks. It failed, in the sense that the trial proceeded and that sentences were handed down as recorded on this blog. It succeeded in the sense that many people today in Spain have accepted at least some of the grotesque distortion of events sold by the conspiracy theorists. In the process, those behind these theories have created the kind of sectarian divide where some victims of the bombings are denied funding from the regional government of Madrid because they refuse to subscribe to the conspiracy theories. Nothing is too shameful for those responsible for such decisions; they still turn out to “commemorate” each anniversary.

Things have quietened down since the general election of 2008, when the opposition PP finally realised that accusing the Spanish Prime Minister of complicity with terrorists wasn’t going to be their route back to power. Since then, the media outlets behind the conspiracy theories have found themselves marginalised for choosing the wrong side in the PP’s internal power struggles. The foot soldiers of the campaign, the Peones Negros, have been reduced to a rump grouping that spend their days bemoaning the inability of the Spanish people to rise up against an imagined alliance between the left and regional nationalists to destroy the country.

But then came the anniversary. El Mundo could think of no better way to mark it than handing over their front page to Luis del Pino, leader of the Peones Negros, so that he could treat us to more examples of his particular journalistic technique. Del Pino’s big scoop was that Jamal Zougham (convicted as one of those who placed the bombs on the trains) had been in the gym the night before the bombings, when according to Del Pino he should have been busy preparing the bombs for the next day. Therefore he must be innocent. That’s about the standard of the conspiracy theories these days. There are also still books being published suggesting, but of course at no point demonstrating, the existence of a hidden hand behind the bombings. The now thoroughly discredited attempts to implicate ETA in the bombings have been given a new twist by the chess players, so very, very clever were the true perpetrators that they left false clues pointing toward ETA involvement.

This blog was never really intended to be an account of the train bombings, although obviously it has been necessary to enter into occasionally minute detail on aspects of what happened 5 years ago. However, the main focus has always been on what drove me to create it in the first place, the political abuse of terror. The blog isn’t quite finished yet, there are still trials taking place with a direct or indirect relation to what happened in Madrid. Also, there are a few posts waiting to be written on some of the myths propagated by those who thought the horrible death of almost 200 people provides a suitable platform for combining politics and business in the same neat package.

Another Nail In The Coffin

Yesterday we got the verdict in the trial of the four senior police officers accused of falsifying a forensic report concerning the discovery of boric acid at the home of Hassan el Haski. Sanity prevailed, and the ridiculous charges were dismissed in a verdict that makes it absolutely clear no crime was committed. Just as they did with the sentence in the main trial for the Madrid train bombings, the conspiracy theorists pick at the wording of the verdict to see if there is anything there which they can twist in an effort to get some consolation from yet another blow to their attempts to cast doubt on the authorship of their bombings. From yesterday’s decision they have inevitably picked up on the view of the judges that the way in which the report was altered was irregular. This of course is a long way from saying that any offence has been committed, but the conspiracy theorist media use this conclusion to try and suggest that they have been at least partially vindicated. What they seek to avoid above all is any kind of admission that they may ever have been wrong in urging the conviction of the officers concerned.

The problem with their conclusion is that the court did not find any irregularity at all in the removal of the paragraphs concerning the finding of boric acid in an ETA safe house and the attempt to link this to the discovery in El Haski's house. It is this section of the report which is at the heart of the whole controversy. What the judges said was that the correct way to have proceeded would have been to assign a fresh report to another specialist, rather than the superior officer changing the original one himself. The omission of the data relating to ETA is not only not considered irregular, the verdict actually explains in considerable detail why this data was irrelevant to the purpose of the report. The judges make clear that they regard the section as unfounded speculation, lacking in scientific rigour and which could only produce confusion. After all, this document was supposed to be a forensic analysis of the substance found, boric acid, this was what was requested by the investigating officers from their forensic colleagues. If the accused had attempted to change the results of the chemical analysis then there would be cause for concern, but this is not what happened. The judges also pointed out in their reasoning the total lack of any evidence relating boric acid to any past terrorist activity and that the inclusion of the references to previous discoveries of this substance added nothing at all to the investigation of the Madrid bombings. The verdict describes it as complementary information of little or no value.

Naturally none of the pro-conspiracy theory media sees any need to report such damning conclusions for yet another of their attempts to mix ETA with the bombings. TeleMadrid yesterday demonstrated how painful it is to recognise reality by focusing its report entirely on the question of the supposed irregularities. El Mundo takes the manipulation a stage further than Telemadrid. Their edition this morning carried a headline that is not just manipulation of the verdict, it is manifestly false. They claim that the forensic police have been accused of being untruthful by the court in order to avoid linking ETA to the bombings. The word that appears in quotes in their headline, “inveraz”, doesn’t actually appear at all in the document of the verdict although El Mundo attempts to pretend it is citing that source. The only point at which the verdict questions the truthfulness of what was done is over the issue of one of the accused putting his name on the report for an analysis which he hadn’t carried out himself. The verdict itself makes clear that this is not that unusual a practice, and given that the officer concerned accepted the findings of the original chemical analysis there was no reason for him to repeat it. From such tiny crumbs El Mundo attempts to deceive its readers about what has really happened. Not surprising, because the whole sorry, crazy affair began with them.



READ MORE IN SPANISH:
The verdict of the court
El Mundo - La Policía Científica fue 'inveraz' para no vincular a ETA con el 11-M
El País - Los policías no cometieron falsedad; las modificaciones eran "inocuas"

The Judge Condemned

One characteristic of the political campaign organised around the Madrid bombings has been the manner in which the chess players turn on those who fail to do their bidding. Their treatment of the chief judge in the trial, Javier Gómez Bermúdez provides a perfect illustration of this behaviour. Until the day of the verdict Gómez Bermúdez was almost untouchable. The conspiracy theorists repeatedly expressed their confidence that the three judge tribunal would not fail to see through what they claim to be the obvious failings of the “official version”. Then came the 31st October, and the dreams of those who hoped for an open verdict and for the police to be accused of lying were shattered. The verdict accepted all of the main arguments of the prosecution and the key evidence in the case.

Shortly after the release of the verdict came the first suggestions from El Mundo and friends that the judge had sold his soul in return for unspecified guarantees of preferential treatment. Then things got worse, the journalist wife of Gómez Bermúdez has written a book on her husband and the trial. The wisdom of doing this can be open to question, but the decision by the conspiracy theorist media to run repeatedly on criticisms of this has much more to do with their decision to place the judge on their list of enemies. That they do this is a reminder that behind the conspiracy theories are some powerful people, and they seek to abuse their power both to influence events and to try and destroy those who refuse to help their cause.

Explosives Analysis....The End Of The Road

With the presentation to the tribunal of the final report on the analysis of the explosives used in the bombings, the conspiracy theorists are now playing their last card in their efforts to establish any kind of connection between the train bombings and ETA. This is a fairly lengthy post, although significantly shorter than the report itself. A certain level of detail is the only way to explain what the issues are here. The prosecution case is that the bombers used Goma 2 Eco dynamite that was stolen from the Mina Conchita in Asturias.

The tests carried out for the trial have been exhaustive, and the length of the resulting report is testimony to that. They were carried out in a transparent way and were even recorded on film to avoid any disputes over the methodology used. In addition to expert analysts from the police and Guardia Civil, the team carrying out the tests also included nominated experts from the defence and victims associations. The tests carried out have in the end confirmed something that has been said repeatedly since the bombings occurred; that it is not possible to identify the commercial brand of explosive used from the analysis of samples taken from the sites where bombs exploded. All that can be said definitively on these samples is that they contain generic components of dynamite. The conspiracy theorists have constantly rejected this idea and insisted that it meant that proper tests had not been carried out following the train attacks. Now, after months of analysis in which pro-conspiracy theory specialists have participated, the result is the same.

The noise that comes from those that promote the connection to ETA is now based entirely around the results of tests on one sample of fire extinguisher powder recovered from one of the trains where bombs exploded (at the station of El Pozo). All samples recovered from the explosion sites on the trains are of materials that may contain traces of explosive components, rather than being samples of the explosive itself. The tests on the powder have revealed the presence both of nitroglycerine and dinitrotoluene (DNT), neither of which are components of Goma 2 Eco. Followers of the conspiracy theories use this fact to suggest that the explosive used was probably Titadine, a past favourite of ETA although it is several years since they last managed to obtain any. Some, and only some, varieties of Titadine do contain these two components although they are of course present in other dynamites too. The problem for those who want to argue that Goma 2 Eco was not the explosive used in the bombs is that both of these substances have also been detected in several samples of Goma 2 Eco! The quantitative analysis of their presence in these samples of explosive reveals percentages which are far too low for either substance to be a considered a component of the explosive, leaving the conclusion that their presence must be due to some form of contamination.

The sample from El Pozo

Where such contamination might have occurred is an open question, there is no definitive explanation of how several samples of the Goma 2 Eco explosive contain substances that are not recognised components. The possible sources of contamination could come in the factory where the explosive was produced, in the mine from where it was stolen, in the preparation of the bombs, or even in the storage of the samples taken following the bombings. Although it is impossible to explain with the facts we have to hand, let’s take a brief look at each possibility

The factory is probably the least likely source of this contamination, although it cannot be ruled out. The conspiracy theorists deride the possibility by arguing that the company has quality controls which preclude the presence of foreign substances, and also by arguing that the master samples provided by the manufacturer do not contain traces of either DNT or nitroglycerine. This is what I call the "tin of paint" argument. Let’s say you buy a tin of blue paint to paint a wall at home and when you open the tin you find it contains red paint. The conspiracy theorist reacts to this situation by denying reality, if it says on the label that the paint is blue then it must be so; the wall will be painted red but our conspiracy theorist will still insist that in fact the colour of the wall is blue. I would return the paint to the shop where I bought it. Let’s hope that none of these people are ever put in charge of a factory producing food or drink, I can just see them assuring poisoned clients that it is impossible for their product to contain any contaminating substance because they have quality controls!

The Conchita mine in Asturias, where it is alleged the explosives and detonators used in the bombs were stolen, presents a more interesting case for consideration. Interesting above all because it raises the possibility of explaining the contamination through contact between the Goma 2 Eco and another dynamite which does contain both DNT and nitroglycerine; Goma 2 EC. This explosive is the predecessor product of Goma 2 Eco, and evidence has already been presented to the trial on how unused Goma 2 Eco was found scattered around the mine together with some quantity of Goma 2 EC. The mine had used both explosives and it seems perfectly possible that at least some of the stolen explosive could have been in contact with GOMA 2 EC or that both had been stored in the same places. Indeed, it can’t be completely ruled out that the stolen explosive contained some of the older brand, those who stole the explosive would not have been too fussy about what they found at the mine. No Goma 2 EC has been recovered from sites related to the bombings.

Another possible source of contamination has been the storage of all the samples during the last 3 years. Although at first sight this did not seem to me a very likely explanation of the contamination, the results contained in the report do throw up some interesting pointers. There are samples of explosive which come from the same source, but which do not all reveal the presence of the additional substances. Also, and this is probably why the conspiracy theorists are also so very keen to reject this explanation, the all important powder from the train at El Pozo that reveals the presence of nitroglycerine was tested previously in the aftermath of the bombings, and no DNT or nitroglycerine was found in these tests! These are factors which are not conclusive but which do open the possibility of contamination which occurred after the bombings.

We are left with the doubt over the source of contamination, but the verdict of the results cannot be ignored. There is also a wide variation in the proportion of substances detected, even in those samples which are from the same explosive. Some samples were obviously recovered in better condition than others; the dynamite from an unexploded bomb is likely to be in much better condition than the smaller pieces that were recovered from the wreckage of Leganés for example. The stolen explosive itself was not all from the same batch, and some of it was probably already in a more degraded condition. Couple this with the volatility of some of the components and the different storage conditions and you have a recipe for a wide range of results. Some of the samples were washed with water and acetone as part of a previous testing phase, something which the conspiracy theorists also seize on to back their case, the fire extinguisher powder does not seem to have passed through this process: No evidence has been provided to show why this process would remove nitroglycerine traces without also removing other soluble components of the explosives.

Despite the variation of the results, and all the evidence suggestive of contamination, one of the analysts involved - almost certainly the one representing the Asociación de Victimas del Terrorismo - insists in the report that the presence of nitroglycerine and DNT in the fire extinguisher powder makes the use of Titadine "highly probable". Why this should be the case when we know that the same substances have been found in some samples of Goma 2 Eco, or when we also know that they are also components of Goma 2 EC, is something that only this person can answer, he offers no further explanation for his conclusion.

One of the pro-conspiracy analysts even complains in his conclusions that there is too much emphasis in the samples on Goma 2 Eco. Well there is of course a fairly simple explanation for the overwhelming presence amongst the samples of this explosive. Traces or even significant quantities of it have been recovered from the only unexploded bomb recovered from the trains, the Kangoo van found near Alcalá railway station on the day of the bombings, the wreckage of the apartment that was blown up in Leganés, the device that was found on the high speed railway line connecting Madrid to Sevilla, and the house where the bombs are alleged to have been prepared. It needs to be emphasised that no other identifiable explosive has been found at any of the sites connected to the bombings. The Titadine that was used for comparative purposes only in the explosives tests came from the capture of ETA members transporting explosives towards Madrid in a van; an event which has no demonstrated connection to the train bombings. I won’t even go into the significant body of evidence that surrounds the supply of stolen Goma 2 Eco from the Mina Conchita in Asturias. So there we have it, a small sample of powder from one of the trains containing tiny traces of components that are found in Titadine, but not exclusively in Titadine, against all of the above evidence.

Far from revealing evidence of a cover up or even involvement of the government in the train bombings, the explosives analysis reveals very clearly the political intention that lies behind the conspiracy theories. You cannot look impartially at the results of the analysis and come away with the conclusion that Titadine must have been the explosive used. Anyone who wants to believe that media such as El Mundo are simply doing a straightforward task of journalistic investigation should take a look at the selective and distorted presentation of the issue by that newspaper. All facts inconvenient for the Titadine theory are ignored and swept aside, anything at all which supports it is treated as being beyond reproach. That’s why they cling to that small bag containing reddish powder as if it was the only significant evidence that had emerged in the entire case, it might not seem much but it’s all they have left. At least they have not confused it with another sample containing white powder that was recovered from Leganés. In this sample the tests also detected the presence of components of explosives, the substance being tested was....cocaine.

READ MORE IN SPANISH:
20 Minutos - Lo que debes saber sobre los explosivos del 11-M y nadie te ha contado...
El Mundo - You can download the reports (in Spanish) from here
El País - Qué estalló en los trenes... y los preservativos de los Tedax

The Chess Players....TeleMadrid

I don’t make a habit of watching TeleMadrid, the publicly owned television channel run by the regional government of Madrid; currently controlled by the Partido Popular (PP). The channel is subject to a rigid political control of its content that would probably make Chinese state television seem like a model of political plurality. Former employees from all sides of the political spectrum have protested about the situation, and many of the current employees have also participated in ongoing protests about the way this channel is run.

One aspect of this political control has been that TeleMadrid has thrown its weight fully behind the conspiracy theories about the train bombings. One night in the first week of the trial, I had one of their news programmes on whilst I waited for a more informative news programme to begin elsewhere. Even allowing for the political bias I have already described I have to admit I was shocked when a smiling reporter in Atocha station brandished, directly in front of the camera, propaganda stickers produced by the Peones Negros. This was a bit much, that a journalist on what is supposed to be a news programme should start legitimising the activities of a tiny right wing sect-like organisation is taking things a step too far.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. I remember being appalled by this channel’s coverage of the London bombings in July 2005. Against a background of film showing emergency workers trying to extract the dead and wounded from the tangled remains of the bus that was blown up, the panel on TeleMadrid continued to argue about whether Prince Albert of Monaco had betrayed Madrid with his vote on which city should get the Olympic Games! It’s at moments like these that you get the full measure of the ethical standards being employed.

However, TeleMadrid has now pushed the limits of cynical exploitation of terrorism just a little bit further. On the 12th March 2007 they chose to mark the 3rd anniversary of the train bombings with a special documentary. You might think that such an occasion would be a chance to honour the victims and perhaps pay homage to the efforts of all those who participated in the attempt to deal with the consequences of that tragic day. Well no, instead what we got was the leader of the Peones Negros, Luis del Pino, being given free rein to air every conspiracy theory fantasy that has been invented about the bombings. So the channel which is paid for by all the citizens of the region of Madrid has nothing better to offer on an event that affected thousands of it's inhabitants than the distorted and sectarian vision of those who are only interested in using these events to try an extract their political revenge for the results of the elections that followed. You have to ask whether it is our own passivity about such things that allows a situation like this to occur with so little protest.

The Extraordinary Case Of The Indestructible ST Timer

One characteristic feature of conspiracy theories in general is their durability even in the face of clear evidence demonstrating the lack of substance behind them. For a very good example of this from the London bombings, take a look at this article from the Guardian . In reality, we don’t need the example of London to demonstrate the point; the conspiracy theories about the Madrid bombings show very well how an unfounded accusation can spread and become part of the debate about the bombings.

A few months ago, on my other blog, I wrote a post about an article that had been published in El Mundo. The article concerned the discovery of an “ST” timer during the search of a workshop being rented by one of those on trial for the bombings. This story originally attracted my attention because I noticed it on a blog being written in English by a supporter of the conspiracy theories. As presented on this other blog, the story was that the timer found had actually been made by ETA, and it was therefore a clear proof of ETA involvement in the Madrid bombings. On reading the original story from El Mundo, I found no facts demonstrating that ETA had made the timer, and I was struck by the fact that the device in question had what was clearly a model number - ST 17 MEC 24 H INT/160 . Now either ETA had their own timer factory with a significant range of products, and perhaps a catalogue or website advertising them, or we were dealing with a timer that had been industrially manufactured.

On questioning the post, the writer of the blog assured me that she knew the story was true because El Mundo’s director Pedro J Ramirez had stated it to be so on the radio program of his good friend Federico Jiménez Losantos. Call me a sceptic if you like, but this wasn’t really convincing enough and after a further exchange the blog’s author discovered a document from the Spanish Parliament where the Minister of the Interior had listed the industrially made ST timers as being one of several types used by ETA in the past. So the idea that the device was made by ETA was not supported by any evidence except the extremely unreliable word of Pedro J Ramirez.

The original newspaper article appears with a photograph of a timer recovered from an ETA commando in the past. The timer has a label on it with the words “Segurtasen Temporizadorea” in Basque. Ramirez argued, again without providing any evidence, that the ST timer was so called because it was the short version of the Basque description of the timer found. Now, put the words “ST” and “timer” into Google and see the long list of search results you get. Congratulations, you have just become an investigative reporter, perhaps not the very best in the world, but already a good bit better than anyone on the payroll of El Mundo.

The timer they didn't find.

You might think that would be the end of the matter, the story had been published and Ramirez had embellished it with the additional details needed to establish the connection to ETA. It should have been just another of the bogus connections that the conspiracy theorists have tried to create between ETA and the Madrid bombings. Over the next few months I got the occasional hit from someone who was obviously doing an Internet search on the model number of the timer, but apart from that the story barely surfaced; even on the web pages of conspiracy theory supporters.

However, I did not count on a defence lawyer for two of the accused in the trial adopting elements of the conspiracy theories as part of the defence being presented. It turns out that this lawyer, representing Jamal Zougam and Basel Ghalyoun, decided to include the photograph of the ETA timer in a written submission to the court. Along with the photograph is a text which links this timer to the one discovered by the police investigating the train bombings, alongside claims that only ETA would ever use such a timer. The newspaper El País picked up on this and ran a story on the inclusion by this lawyer of conspiracy theory material, and in the process demonstrated the clear industrial origin of the timer in question.

My original post on this issue was actually the first thing I wrote about the conspiracy theories; I never suspected at the time that 8 months later I would be returning to the same topic on a blog entirely dedicated to the subject of the Madrid bombings. The unpredictable consequences of blogging. What this story demonstrates is a sad reality that the conspiracy theorists are very much aware of; that an often repeated lie refuses to die. For them, anything that demonstrates even the most tenuous connection to ETA acquires an almost mystical significance that resists any effort to present the facts behind the issue. I'm not convinced that we have heard the last of the ST timer.

READ MORE IN SPANISH:

El País

El Mundo And Dinitrotoluene

The article in El Mundo today concerning the pre-trial analysis of the explosives is a perfect demonstration of the methods used by this newspaper in its attempts to try and cast doubt on the investigation of the bombings.

They have found a document which states that dinitrotoluene (DNT) is not a recognised component of the explosive allegedly used in the bombings - Goma-2 Eco. This is fine, it is a document based on analysis of explosives carried out by the Guardia Civil - but not of tests carried out on the samples recovered from the explosion sites in Madrid or Leganés. The latest tests for the trial have indeed found the presence of DNT in the samples of Goma-2 Eco that were recovered in the investigation, and they have also found this substance in the master samples provided for comparison purposes.

Despite this, El Mundo uses the presence of DNT and the fact that not all components of Goma-2 Eco were discovered in all the samples to try and suggest that this explosive may not have been used at all. Instead, and very predictably for anyone who has read their past coverage of the issue, they raise the possibility of Titadine, an explosive used in the past by ETA and therefore the firm favourite of our conspiracy theorists. Titadine does contain DNT, but unfortunately there is no other single fact that currently points to its use in the train bombings. Indeed, the tests have produced evidence of the presence of substances that are not present in Titadine (nitroglicol), but you will search in vain to find any reference to this in El Mundo's article.

Towards the end of the article they get round to mentioning that the master samples of Goma-2 Eco contain DNT (small traces), but only after making a determined attempt to cast doubt on the validity of an analysis carried out in absolutely transparent circumstances. So while the rest of the press reported today on the confirmation of this explosive as the one likely to have been used in the bombings, El Mundo chose a headline directly suggesting otherwise. It is a common feature of their articles on the bombings that they choose a sensationalist headline not borne out by evidence which they either omit completely or bury deep inside the article that follows.