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Spain marks fifth anniversary of Madrid train bombings
AFP - Thursday, March 12
MADRID (AFP) - - Spain marked the fifth anniversary of the Madrid train bombings, Europe's worst Islamist attack, on Wednesday in a low-key fashion which drew criticism from relatives of the 191 victims.
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Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero led a minute's silence in parliament but unlike in previous years neither he nor King Juan Carlos will attend any official commemorative act.
Relatives of the victims placed wreaths at three suburban railway stations from where the four commuter trains which were attacked in 2004 departed, while Crown Prince Felipe and his wife were to attend a concert in Madrid in memory of the victims.
"We have passed into the background ... We are not interesting anymore," Pilar Manjon, who lost her 20-year-old son Daniel in the attacks and serves as president of an association of March 11 victims, told El Pais.
She said the financial aid given to those suffering after-effects from the attacks was insufficient and some of the over 1,800 people who were injured in the train bombings are struggling to put food on the table.
In another sign of neglect, the monument to the victims at the Atocha train station, the destination of the bombed trains, is in disrepair, Manjon said.
"We don't want any great pageantry or a Ground Zero like in New York, we just want a place that is worthy to remember them," the 50-year-old said.
The blasts, from 10 backpacks filled with dynamite and nails on March 11, 2004 left bodies and limbs scattered on railway tracks.
Responsibility for the bombings was claimed by militants who said they acted on behalf of Al-Qaeda to avenge the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq.
Zapatero, a Socialist, scored a surprise win in an election three days after the bombings and he swiftly withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq.
Voters then were infuriated at the conservative government's insistence that the armed Basque separatist group ETA was to blame even though evidence pointed to Islamic extremists.
Three weeks after the bombings, seven of the alleged ringleaders blew themselves up as Spanish police surrounded the flat where they were hiding.
A Spanish court in October 2007 convicted 21 of the 28 defendants, mostly from north Africa, who stood trial in connection with the bombings. They were found guilty on charges ranging from weapons possession to mass murder.
The following year Spain's Supreme Court acquitted four of the 21 on appeal.
During the first anniversary of the attacks, traffic came to a standstill and people poured out of office buildings to observe five minutes of silence. But the commemorations have drawn less attention as the years go by.
Spanish police have carried out several operations against suspected Islamic extremists since the bomb attacks.
The government has introduced new counter-terrorism measures and toughened laws already in place aimed at fighting ETA, which has killed 825 people in its 40-year campaign for a Basque homeland.
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Pilar Manjon, who lost her 20-year-old son in the attacks and serves as president of an association of March 11 victims, holds a carnation at Atocha train station, in Madrid. Spain marked the fifth anniversary of the Madrid train bombings, Europe's worst Islamist attack, on Wednesday in a low-key fashion which drew criticism from relatives of the 191 victims.
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