Spain Reduces Sentence on 9/11 Conspirator

Spain's High Court acquitted on Thursday a man accused of conspiring to help commit the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, court papers said.

Judicial sources said the man, known as Abu Dahdah, would serve 12 years in jail for leading a terrorist group rather than the full 27 years to which he had been sentenced.

Abu Dahdah, whose full name is Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, was accused of being an al Qaeda member.

"We must absolve, and we do absolve, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas of the crime of conspiracy to commit terrorist murder for which he was accused," the court document said.

It added that other convictions of Abu Dahdah still stood.

Wouldn't it be nice for the news to provide the reason that the court gave for reducing the sentence on a 9/11 conspirator who should have served 27 years and will instead serve 12 years? Is it too much to ask? Was there some kind of technicality involved, or is the court sticking its fingers in the air and seeing which way the wind is blowing?

UPDATE:
The BBC has a better discussion, but notes that the Spanish government will give its rationale for the reduction in the sentence at a later date. Somewhere along the line, the Spanish government went from requesting 25 years for each of the 2,973 people murdered in the 9/11 terrorist attacks to saying that the sentence should be overturned for lack of evidence. That's a head scratcher.

Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, was arrested in November 2001, about four years after Spanish police began tapping his telephone.

He is believed to have led a Spanish al-Qaeda cell since 1995.

The three men acquitted by the tribunal - Moroccans Driss Chebli, Sadik Merizak and Abdelaziz Benyaich - were released in April at the request of prosecutors.

The reasons behind the verdicts published on Thursday are due to be given at a later date.

Yarkas was jailed in September last year along with 17 other men convicted on charges of aiding al-Qaeda.

At the trial, prosecutors called for him to be jailed for 25 years for each of the 2,973 people killed in the 2001 attacks.

But earlier this year they asked for his conviction to be overturned because of lack of evidence.