A Spanish court is going to deliver its verdict in the biggest Islamic terrorism trial in Europe of 28 suspects in connection to the Madrid train bombings on Wednesday, according to media reports.
The government therefore put security forces on alert and prepared new memorial services for the 191 people who were killed when 10 bombs packed with nails on March 11, 2004.
The judge is expected to sum up the case and sentence those on trial at Spain's High court in Madrid.
The court will also issue sentences, in front of the bullet-proof box which held the accused during over four months of trial earlier this year.
The top eight defendants each face sentences of nearly 39,000 years in prison if they are convicted on all charges, although under Spanish law they could spend no more than 40 years behind bars.
During the four-month trial which wrapped up on July 2, all of the accused -- 19 mostly Moroccan Arabs living in Spain and nine Spaniards charged with providing the explosives used in the bombings -- said they were innocent.
The defendants also denied having any link to radical Islam or Al Qaeda, and several went on a temporary hunger strike during the high-security trial to protest what they said was the "injustice" of their situation.
But evidence quickly began to point to Islamic radicals angered over Madrid's decision to send troops to back the US-led war in Iraq.
Two days after the attacks the Spanish government announced the discovery near a Madrid mosque of a videotape in Arabic claiming the attacks on behalf of "Al Qaeda's military spokesman in Europe."
(Xinhua News Agency via agencies October 31, 2007)
