MADRID - The suspected leader of Al-Qaeda in Spain on Monday denied all links with the plotters behind the September 11 attacks as he was cross-examined on the second day of a mass trial of 24 suspects here.
The Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, also known as "Abu Dahdah", is accused of organising a meeting where plans for the 2001 attacks in the United States were finalised, and of running an Al-Qaeda recruitment unit since 1995.
The well-groomed 41-year-old, who may be sentenced to more than 60,000 years jail if found guilty of plotting the September 11 attacks -- 25 years for each of the 3,000 lives lost -- describes himself as a businessman.
Yarkas denied ever having made contact with the Egyptian Mohammed Atta, the leader of the September 11 suicide bombers who is alleged to have attended the meeting in July 2001, in Tarragona in northeast Spain.
"Never in my life have I spoken to Mohammed Atta, Mohammed Belfatmi or Ramzi Bin al Shibh," who also allegedly took part in the meeting, he insisted.
"If I knew them, I can assure you I would tell you so," said Abu Dahdah, who flatly denies having taken part in the gathering.
Yarkas sat smiling and at ease through most of the prosecutors' questions, although he seemed disconcerted by photographic evidence produced at one point.
"I can't remember", "I don't know", "I have a very poor memory," he offered, as a string of questions were put to him.
But when asked to explain the circumstances under which he was photographed firing a pistol, he lost his composure.
Yarkas offered to tell the judge the name of the friend he said had lent him the gun "but only to you, not publicly with all the journalists," he stipulated -- which the judge refused, reminding him that all Spanish trials are public.
Yarkas then declined to publicly reveal the name.
The trial is the first to be shown live on satellite television in Spain, and judge Javier Gomez Bermudez asked the cameraman at one point to get better close ups on exhibits, while the defendants' faces were also subject to close scrutiny.
Yarkas was unfailingly polite though sometimes combative when, in impeccable Spanish, he put the judge right on certain names or points of Muslim etiquette.
He did admit to having met two high-ranking Al-Qaeda officials whom he allegedly succeeded in 1995 after they left for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
According to the indictment one of them, Zein Al-Abidine Mohamed Hassan, alias "Sheikh Salah", welcomed recruits for "holy war" sent out to Pakistan from Spain by Yarkas. The other, Mustafa Setmarian, allegedly ran Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
Yarkas admitted "having tea together after leaving the mosque" in Madrid but denied any further knowledge of them and all charges put to him.
Prosecutors plan to demand that Yarkas and two others suspected of links to the September 11 attacks be sentenced to more than 60,000 years in prison.
Monday's session opened with Luis Jose Galan, the only Spanish-born man among the 24 accused, being brought to the dock. He denied having been sent to a training camp in Indonesia by Yarkas along with another man referred to as Parlin in July 2001.
"Neither Abu Dahdah nor Parlin ever spoke to me about training, grenades or bombs. If they had I would have distanced myself from them," said the 39-year-old convert to Islam and former heroin addict.
He seemed nervous, wiped his brow and asked for water as he explained his past as a radical left-winger and explained how he had gone to Indonesia with a view to moving there after losing his job with a Spanish transport company.
Exhibits included photos of him at Madrid marches in support of Palestinians and Chechens.
He said he had never been to any training camp and denounced all forms of violence.
"Not only do I condemn the deaths of 3,000 people but even one death in New York, Gaza or Fallujah. He who dares take a life kills all humanity. I don't care whether his name is Bin Laden, Bush, Sharon or Putin," he said.
The trial is expected to last two months in a specially-built courtroom in a park on the outskirts of Madrid, where the defendants appear inside a bulletproof glass cubicle.

04/25/2005 17:02 GMT