Accuracy of government statements

The conservative PP government was accused of falsely blaming Euskadi Ta Askatasuna

ETA

ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...

 for the attacks. The very day of the attacks, police officials informed the Government that explosives usually used by ETA were found at the blast sites. This, along with other suspicious circumstances, led the PP to suspect ETA involvement. Although there was no direct or indirect evidence from the investigation of the bombing pointing to ETA involvement, the group had been caught with a large amount of explosives some months previously, which looked like preparations for a big strike. But according to a report of the ESISC (The European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center) the very same morning of the bombings the Spanish Intelligence Services and Policy had concluded that the author of the massacre was an Islamist terrorist group, but they had been ordered by the government to deny this Islamist attribution and insist that the ETA were the only suspects, although this same source also states that there is no precedent of collaboration of international islamists with non-Muslims, and there were two non-Muslims (and police informers) involved in the Madrid attacks.

The government sent messages to all Spanish embassies abroad ordering that they uphold the version that ETA was responsible. President José María Aznar

José María Aznar

José María Alfredo Aznar López served as the Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He is on the board of directors of News Corporation.-Early life:...

 even called a number of newspaper editors and publishers personally to ask for their support for this version.

The tense political atmosphere in Spain in the period running up to the elections brought the PP to the edge of a political catastrophe. On one hand, José María Aznar was aggressively opposed to any dialogue with ETA, and based most of his campaign on the threat of terrorism (the 9/11 attacks in New York reinforced his view of the war against the terrorists). On the other hand, Aznar's friendship with U.S. president George W. Bush led him to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq

2003 invasion of Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...

 against the views of the overwhelming majority of the population (resulting in the biggest demonstrations ever seen in Spain since the restoration of democracy in the late 1970s). This left Aznar in a complicated situation- if Basque terrorists were proven to be responsible for the massacre, it would favour the PP's campaign, but if an Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic group appeared to cause the blast, people might blame him for earning himself (and Spain) enemies.

The Summary of the Judicial Enquiry concluded that the decision to attack Madrid was taken after, and as a result of, the invasion of Iraq. Nevertheless, The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

 claimed the decision was taken before 9-11 according to an Italian police report.

Explosives used in the attacks

In the immediate aftermath of the train bombings it was suspected that the explosive used in the bombs may have been Titadine

Titadine

Titadyn 30 AG is a type of compressed dynamite used in mining and manufactured in southern France by Titanite S.A. The explosive comes in the form of salmon-coloured tubes of a range of diameters, from 50 to 120 mm...

, as initial suspicions on responsibility for the bombings focused on ETA

ETA

ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...

 and this explosive had been used by them on occasions in the past. As evidence emerged from the investigation attention on the explosive used switched to a brand of dynamite known as Goma-2

Goma-2

Goma-2 Eco is a type of high explosive manufactured for industrial use by Unión Española de Explosivos S.A.It is a gelatinous, Nitroglycol-based explosive widely used within Spain and exported abroad.It was used by ETA in the 1980s and 1990s....

.
Analysis of samples from the explosion sites carried out by a member of the bomb disposal squad (TEDAX) following the bombings did not produce a definitive result. The analyst concerned later testified in the trial of those accused of committing the bombings. She stated that the only thing she could identify in these tests were generic components of dynamite.
Later in 2004, in his appearance before the parliamentary commission of investigation, Juan Jesus Sánchez Manzano (the head of the TEDAX) stated that traces of nitroglycerine had been detected in the samples recovered after the bombings. He would later retract this statement before the investigating magistrate in charge of the case and emphasised that he was not an expert in explosives. The statement by Sánchez Manzano led supporters of the idea that ETA was involved in the bombings to question whether the explosive used in the bombs had been Goma 2 ECO. Nitroglycerine is not a component of Goma 2 ECO.
In the run up to the trial of those accused, the court ordered that fresh tests be carried out on the samples recovered from the trains and on remains of explosive recovered from different sites connected to the bombings. These tests were carried out by specialists appointed from the security services, the defence and other parties to the accusation. The judges ordered that video and audio recordings be made of these tests. The results of these tests
were also inconclusive concerning the samples taken from the explosion sites. Nitroglycerine was detected in one of these samples, and the presence of dinitrotoluene

Dinitrotoluene

2,4-Dinitrotoluene or Dinitro is an organic compound with the formula C6H32. This pale yellow crystalline solid is well known as a precursor to trinitrotoluene but is mainly used in the polymer industry....

 (DNT) was also detected. This has led to claims that the explosive used could have been Titadine. However, also detected in the same sample was dibutyl phthalate

Dibutyl phthalate

Dibutyl phthalate is a commonly used plasticizer. It is also used as an additive to adhesives or printing inks. It is soluble in various organic solvents, e.g. in alcohol, ether and benzene...

 (DBP), which is a component of Goma 2 ECO but not of titadine. Several other samples from the explosion sites also revealed the joint presence of DNT and DBP. Tests were carried out on a sample of Titadine. In addition the presence of nitroglycerine and DNT was also detected in samples of Goma 2 ECO that had been recovered from sites associated with the bombings.

The discovery of these different components led to suggestions that there could have been some accidental contamination of the samples and explosive remains, although a definitive cause of such contamination has not been established. Entire cartridges, or partial remains of cartridges, of Goma 2 ECO were recovered from the apartment in Leganés

Leganés

Leganés is a city in central Spain. Part of the greater Madrid conurbation - mainly a satellite-city with a population of 186,066 it is located about 11 km southwest of the city centre....

 where 7 suspects of the bombings died following an explosion, the only unexploded bomb, a Renault

Renault

Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...

 Kangoo van found near Alcalá de Henares

Alcalá de Henares

Alcalá de Henares , meaning Citadel on the river Henares, is a Spanish city, whose historical centre is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites, and one of the first bishoprics founded in Spain...

 station on the day of the bombings, and the device that was left by the high speed railway line connecting Madrid and Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

.

The only explosive positively identified in any site connected to the bombings has been Goma 2 ECO and the sentence in the trial concluded that it was likely that the bombs contained this explosive or a mixture of it with its predecessor product Goma 2 EC.

Could the bombings have been prevented?

Some of the alleged Islamist perpetrators had reportedly been under surveillance by the Spanish police since January 2003. According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo

El Mundo (Spain)

El Mundo is the second largest printed and the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 300,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the...

, 24 of the 29 alleged perpetrators were informers and/or controlled by the Spanish Police, Civil Guard

Civil Guard (Spain)

The Civil Guard is the Spanish gendarmerie. It has foreign peace-keeping missions and maintains military status and is the equivalent of a federal military-status police force. As a police force, the Guardia Civil is comparable today to the French Gendarmerie, the Italian Carabinieri and the...

 and C.N.I.

Centro Nacional de Inteligencia

The National Intelligence Center is the Spanish official intelligence agency. Its headquarters are located in the A-6 motorway near Madrid. The CNI is the successor of the Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa, Higher Centre for Defense Intelligence. Its main target areas are North Africa...

 ("National Center of Intelligence

Intelligence (information gathering)

Intelligence assessment is the development of forecasts of behaviour or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organization, based on a wide range of available information sources both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership...

") from the time before the attacks. Two alleged perpetrators were Guardia Civil and Spanish police

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

 informant

Informant

An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...

s. Cell phones used in the bombings were unlocked in a shop owned by a former Spanish policeman who is not one of those accused in connection with the bombings.

Two of those accused of supplying explosives for the bombings have a conviction for a previous 2001 offence of trafficking with Goma-2

Goma-2

Goma-2 Eco is a type of high explosive manufactured for industrial use by Unión Española de Explosivos S.A.It is a gelatinous, Nitroglycol-based explosive widely used within Spain and exported abroad.It was used by ETA in the 1980s and 1990s....

 ECO, an offence that did not prevent Trashorras, described as "necessarily involved co-operator" from later getting a job in a mine, thus gaining access to explosives and blast equipment.

Controversy regarding responsibility

Thirteen improvised explosive device

Improvised explosive device

An improvised explosive device , also known as a roadside bomb, is a homemade bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action...

s were reported to have been used by the Islamic militant group that was responsible for the bombing, all but three of which detonated. This group seems to have had very tenuous connection with al-Qaeda but with the aim of acting on its behalf. Shortly after the bombings, the group was completely dismantled by the Spanish police and the core members died in an apparent suicide explosion when they were surrounded in the nearby city of Leganés

Leganés

Leganés is a city in central Spain. Part of the greater Madrid conurbation - mainly a satellite-city with a population of 186,066 it is located about 11 km southwest of the city centre....

.

The Madrid bombings have led to the sharp political and social differences between the parties in Spain being accentuated. This stands in sharp contrast to other large-scale terrorist attacks such as those in New York and London, which galvanized society and political forces towards unity.

Spain's political division is exemplified by the accusation of members of the Partido Popular and several conservative media outlets regarding who was responsible for the bombings and whether the attacks were for political gain. Some of these sources initially supported the hypothesis that ETA was behind the attacks. These groups have focused their investigation on unexplained details and inconsistencies in the Summary Report and have expressed skepticism about the truthfulness and neutrality of the evidence presented.

Since the bombings, the chief opposition party, PP,(which lost power in the election in the immediate aftermath of the bombings) together with the conservative media forces in Spain, have overtly argued the possibility that the Socialist party, the police, the Spanish, French, and Moroccan secret services, and, of course, ETA, had a role in organisation of the outrage.

Not all conservative media outlets are involved in this campaign. There is a distinct difference between those who believe that the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...

 (PSOE) used it for political gain (as it had access to information, either from France or through links to the Police, used to criticise the government in the aftermath of the bombings), and those who believe a consortium of the ETA, some groups in the State Security Forces (possibly related to the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación

Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación

Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación were death squads established illegally by officials of the Spanish government to fight ETA, the principal Basque separatist militant group. They were active from 1983 until 1987, under Spanish Socialist Workers Party -led governments...

 (GAL)), the Moroccan secret services, and the PSOE may have had a role either in organising the bombings or blocking official investigation. The first group includes the Newspaper ABC

Diario ABC

ABC is a Spanish national daily newspaper founded in Madrid on January 1, 1903, by Torcuato Luca de Tena y Alvarez-Ossorio. ABC started as a weekly newspaper until it turned daily in June 1905. Today, ABC is the third largest general-interest newspaper in Spain, and the oldest newspaper still...

, while the second group includes the Radio Station COPE

COPE

COPE may refer to:* The Council of Pacific Education , a regional branch of Education International, the global federation of teachers' trade unions* Coalition of Progressive Electors, a municipal political party in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada...

 and newspapers La Razón

La Razón (Madrid)

La Razón is Spain's fifth highest-circulation general-interest daily newspaper based in Madrid. It is the newest of the five most read, having been founded in 1998 by Luis Maria Ansón....

 and El Mundo. This second group claims the official version is more than questionable and that the truth is still unknown. They have coupled such claims with doubts about the legitimacy of the current government, which they oppose ideologically.

An attempt to link ETA to the bombings occurred in May 2006, when El Mundo published on its front page that a business card of the Basque firm Mondragón Cooperative Corporation (MCC)

Mondragón Cooperative Corporation

The MONDRAGON Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain. Founded in the town of Mondragón in 1956, its origin is linked to the activity of a modest technical college and a small workshop producing paraffin heaters...

 had been found in the van used by the terrorists. This piece of evidence, discovered by the policemen who found the van, was not found in the numerous police reports.
El Mundos rationale was that Mondragón had no connection with ETA but could point to ETA, just as the Qur'anic cassette pointed to Islamic extremists.

The Spanish police later asserted that it was not a business card, but the cover of a music CD of the popular Spanish 80s rock group "Orquesta Mondragón". The CD with its case was found in a pile of various other music CDs. The rear of the cover had apparently been used by the legitimate proprietor to warn people when he parked in the middle of the street, since it had a handwritten message that read "I am coming back immediately". Nevertheless, El Mundo continued to insist on the existence of an MCC card in the van.

The Spanish police also asserted that a card from "Gráficas Bilbaínas" ("Bilbao

Bilbao

Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...

 printing", a print shop located in Madrid) found in the van was the source of the alleged confusion.

Alleged destruction of evidence

Some critics of the indictment (for instance the public clerks' Spanish Union "Manos Limpias") allege that the passenger cars damaged by the explosions were destroyed to hide evidence, and the corpses found in the Leganés flat were buried without autopsy

Autopsy

An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...

.

Those allegations have been dismissed by the Spanish Supreme Court ("Tribunal Supremo"). The Spanish institution denied the accusations and even prosecuted the "Manos Limpias" union for false accusations

Maussili Kalaji

Mobile phones used in the bombings were unlocked in a shop owned by a Spanish policeman (who retired after the attacks) of Syrian descent and former al Fatah

Fatah

Fataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...

 militant, Maussili Kalaji.

Mr. Kalaji was not one of those accused in connection with the bombings, though the police proposed to take him into custody.

The thirteenth bomb

Clues from the thirteenth bomb allowed the police to arrest the first alleged perpetrators, three Moroccans (Jamal Zougam, Mohamed Chaoui and Mohamed Bekkaliand) and two Indian citizens, on Saturday, 13 March. The bomb has been called "the bomb that dismounted the PP version of ETA

ETA

ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...

", and was known to Spanish sources as "Mochila de Vallecas

Vallecas

Vallecas is a neighborhood of Madrid composed of two districts: Puente de Vallecas and Villa de Vallecas...

", "Backpack from Vallecas", because its discovery was announced in the Vallecas Police Station on the morning of March 12. The thirteenth bomb's validity as an exhibit is disputed.

Presence of the bomb on the train

On the morning of the bombings, the trains were double-checked by the EOD police to be sure that no unexploded devices were present. The thirteenth bomb was not found at this time. The only EOD policeman who remembered handling a heavy bag (the thirteenth bomb weighed around 24 pounds) that morning in El Pozo station asserted positively that the heavy bag he handled in the train station did not contain the bomb.

Correct handling of the evidence

A Spanish police report concluded that the bomb could have been manipulated by unidentified persons in Ifema (in Spanish, "pudo ser manipulada por personas no identificadas en el Ifema"), which was the Madrid exhibition center where objects found in the trains were temporarily stored. While DNA from an unidentified male was found on or in the bag, Spanish police asserted that the 'chain of custody' was unbroken
and the PP leader, Mariano Rajoy

Mariano Rajoy

Mariano Rajoy Brey is a Spanish People's Party politician and is the Prime Minister-elect since 20 November 2011. He will be sworn into office in mid-December 2011....

, asserted in March 2006 that he had no doubts about the validity of this police exhibit.

In December 2006 El Mundo claimed that one of the policeman in the Vallecas Police Station during the alleged discovery of the thirteenth bomb was under investigation for his alleged participation in a plot to sell illegal Goma 2-ECO, and in the assassination of a petty thief.