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A Moroccan terror suspect has been arrested in Britain on suspicion of being linked to both the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and the Madrid train bombings this year, police confirmed Wednesday.
Scotland Yard said Farid Hilali, 35, was taken to a London court Monday and ordered to be held without bail on a European arrest warrant requested by Spain. He will return to court on July5.
Before his Monday court appearance, Hilali had been held for months in Britain's high security Belmarsh prison for suspected immigration offenses.
Hilali, also known as "Shakur", is thought to have telephoned the alleged head of an al-Qaeda cell in Madrid shortly before the September 11 attacks, according to The Times newspaper published Wednesday.
In a tapped call on August 27, 2001, Hilali allegedly said that he "had entered into the field of aviation" and "cut the throat of the eagle" and promised that he would have something to show to an unnamed Spain-based terrorist leader in about a month, The Times reported.
Hilali was indicted (under the name of Shakur) in September 2003 in Spain along with 34 others, including al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, for having used the country as a base to plot the Sept. 11 attacks.
Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon said in April that Spanish police had identified "Shakur" as Hilali and called for his extradition.
Garzon alleged that the Sept. 11 plot was finalized in 2001 at a meeting between Mohamed Atta, the suspected leader of the attacks, and Ramzi Binalshibh, a suspected al-Qaeda leader.
One suspect of the Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people, has been charged with helping arrange that meeting, The Times said.
Under the European arrest warrants the so-called "fast-track" extradition procedures should take about three months.
(Xinhua News Agency July 1, 2004)
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