Spain Arrests Three Al-Qaeda Suspects

July 16, 2002

MADRID, Spain (AP) — Spanish police arrested three Syrians on Tuesday suspected of being al-Qaeda members, including one who had videos of the World Trade Center and monuments in the United States.

Two of the suspects were arrested in Madrid and the other in the eastern town of Castellon, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. They were identified as Ghasoub Al-Abrash Ghalyoun, Abdalrahman Alarnaot Abu-Aljer and Mohamen Khair Al Saqq. Ghalyoun and Abu-Aljer had Spanish nationality, police said.

The ministry statement said Ghalyoun belonged to the radical Muslim Brotherhood and had been arrested in Spain in April but later released.

At the time of his first arrest, police confiscated many videos including five shot by Ghalyoun during a trip to the United States in 1997.

"The form and type of recording go beyond touristic curiosity as shown by two of the tapes, which are entirely of different angles from different distances of the Twin Towers in New York," the statement said.

It said police found similar recordings of New York's Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, the Sears tower in Chicago, Disneyland and Universal studios in California.

Other videos were extremely violent and showed Islamic fighters training in camps and during combat scenes in Chechnya, the statement said.

It was not immediately clear why Ghalyoun was released in April or re-arrested Tuesday.

The arrests were ordered by Judge Baltasar Garzon as part of an operation begun last year with the detention of more than a dozen people across the country between November and April. The judge has accused those arrested then of recruiting members for al-Qaeda, financing the group and taking part in preparations for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Spanish authorities are trying to figure out what Mohamed Atta, the Sept. 11 ringleader, was doing during two trips to Spain months before the attacks.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/07/16/2002-07-16-spain-arrests_x.htm