Scotland Yard hunt for militant linked to Madrid bombing

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Times
By By Edward Owen and Daniel McGrory



AN ISLAMIC militant implicated in the Madrid train bombings and an alleged plot to attack Grand Central Station in New York is being hunted by police in London.

Sketches of the station were found at a gang hideout in Madrid soon after the March 11 bombing last year of four trains that killed 191 commuters but, to the dismay of US security agencies, Spanish police did not detect the plot for nine months. Several key members of that al-Qaeda cell escaped.

The man being sought by Scotland Yard is Moutaz Almallah, who was born in Syria and is believed to have fled to London. His brother, Mouhannad, was given bail while awaiting trial in Madrid accused of sheltering some of the bombers and financing the operation.

The CIA wants to know why it took so long for the Spanish authorities to detect the apparent plot to kill thousands at New York’s busiest station, said to have been on a computer disk found in Mouhannad’s Almallah’s property in a rundown area of the capital.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-1508847,00.html