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Two of the last six prisoners of 11-M will be released before the end of the year

2022-03-10T05:12:41.884Z


Rachid Aglif will be released from prison on April 1, while Mohamed Bouharrat will do so on October 30.


Rachid Aglif, who will be released on April 1, during his statement in the trial for the 11-M attacks held in 2007. EFE

One day before the 18th anniversary of the March 11 attacks in Madrid, only six of the 18 sentenced by the Supreme Court to prison terms for that massacre remain in prison.

Of them, two will be released before the end of the year, as legal and prison sources have confirmed to EL PAÍS.

This is Rachid Aglif, aka

The Rabbit

, and Mohammed Bouharrat.

The first will be released on April 1.

Seven months later, on October 30, Bouharrat will follow in his footsteps.

After the release of both, only the two convicted as material authors of the placement of the bombs, Jamal Zougam and Otman El Gnaoui, will remain in prison;

the Asturian miner who provided the explosive, Emilio Suárez Trashorras, and another member of the jihadist cell, Abdelmajid Bouchar.

The first three, sentenced to thousands of years in prison for the 193 dead and close to 2,000 wounded in the massacre, have their sentences due to expire in March 2044, when the 40-year maximum term established by the Penal Code.

Bouchar, sentenced to 18 years, will do so in August 2023.

Aglif, sentenced 18 in prison for collaboration with a terrorist organization and explosives trafficking, is serving the last weeks of his sentence in the Malaga II Penitentiary Center, in the town of Archidona, after passing through several prisons, such as Albòcasser (Castellón) .

Since the beginning of his sentence, he has been classified in the first degree prison or closed regime, the harshest, reserved for inmates of "extreme danger or serious and manifest maladjustment."

This regime has prevented him, for example, from enjoying permits, in addition to having fewer hours out in the yard throughout his sentence than the rest of the inmates.

His defense attorney, Andreas Chalaris, criticizes this situation in a telephone conversation: "He has always had good behavior and is not a jihadist."

The lawyer, who maintains that his client is innocent, adds that Aglif has taken advantage of his stay in prison to improve his Spanish and start studying history and law.

When he is released in April, Aglif, who is 42 years old, will foreseeably be deported to his country of origin, Morocco, as has happened previously with other 11-M convicts when they finish serving their sentences.

However, his lawyer is confident that this expulsion will not ultimately occur due to the closure of borders in Morocco due to covid, which has already prevented the deportation of some convicted of jihadism during the pandemic, although in at least one case the deportation was carried out. according to police sources.

"In Spain he has his brother and his nephews," Chalaris insists to demonstrate a rootedness with which to justify his stay.

In addition, the lawyer points out that the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, has not yet ruled on the appeal that Aglif filed against the sentence that convicted him of 11-M.

Bouharrat, who will turn 43 in May, is also expected to be expelled to Morocco when he is released on October 30.

Sentenced to 12 years in prison for his participation in 11-M, he should have left prison earlier, but a previous sentence, for a robbery with violence, has extended his imprisonment until this year.

In his case, he has been classified since 2012 in the second degree or ordinary regime, like the majority of the prison population in Spain, which allows him to aspire to enjoy permits.

Held in the Valladolid prison, he occupies a cell in a module intended for well-behaved inmates and has had work assignments within the prison, such as being the orderly in charge of the center's sports center, sources from his former defense point out and prison sources confirm.

After them, but already in 2023, Abdelmajid Bouchar, known as

El Gamo

, will be released after escaping from a first arrest on the run.

Sentenced to 18 years in prison, his release is scheduled for August 12 of that year.

Bouchar, who is currently 39 years old, was arrested in Serbia in 2005, where he had taken refuge after fleeing from the Leganés apartment where other members of the cell died after setting off the explosives they had, and extradited to Spain.

Held in the Coruña prison of Teixeiro, he has been classified since his sentence in the first prison degree, the harshest.

Two other 11-M prisoners are in the same Galician prison: Jamal Zougam and Emilio Suárez Trashorras.

The first, who is 48 years old, was sentenced to 42,922 years as the perpetrator of the attacks and also remains in the first degree.

During his time in prison, he was accused of being part of the jihadist network of radicalization dismantled by the Civil Guard in 2018 in the so-called Operation Escribano, which included 26 inmates spread over 17 prisons.

Suárez Trashorras, 46, was sentenced to 34,715 years in prison and his prison journey has had ups and downs.

The former miner managed to be classified in second degree prison and even held a restorative meeting (meeting between perpetrator and victim so that the former assumes the damage caused) with one of the survivors of the attacks.

However, at the end of 2018, when he was in La Moraleja prison, in Dueñas (Palencia), he allegedly threatened an official, which led to his transfer and his regression to the first degree.

He is currently in prison in A Coruña, again classified in second degree.

Jamal Zougan and Emilio Suárez Trashorras in photos from 2004.

The last of those sentenced still in prison is Othman El Gnaoui, sentenced to 42,922 years in prison as the perpetrator of the massacre.

His release from prison is scheduled for March 19, 2044. Held in the Mansilla prison (León), he is also classified in the first prison degree, although in his case article 100.2 of the Penitentiary Regulations is applied to him due to his good behavior, which has softened his life regimen to make it very similar to a second degree.

Thanks to this, he is allowed to spend more time in the courtyard and has even been given a cell in a module where ordinary prisoners are held.

His lawyer during the trial, Beatriz Bernal, who visits him periodically, assures that El Gnaoui is “fully integrated into prison life” and that he has taken advantage of the time “to improve his Spanish and his cultural level.

He has developed as a person,” she adds.

Bernal insists that his client is innocent and that his contact with the members of the cell [he participated in the construction of the house in Morata de Tajuña in which the explosive was hidden and accompanied a section of the road to the caravan that transported the rubber 2 from Asturias] was “occasional”.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-03-10

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