Spanish Court Delivers Verdicts in Madrid Bombings

NPR | By Steve Inskeep,

Jerome Socolovsky

Published October 31, 2007 at 5:00 AM CDT

A Spanish court read verdicts for 27 men and one woman in connection with the 2004 Madrid terror bombings that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800. The blasts targeted crowded, rush-hour commuter trains on the morning of March 11, 2004, traumatizing Spain.

Most of the 28 were young Muslim men of North African origin who allegedly acted out of allegiance to al-Qaida to avenge the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, although Spanish investigators say they did so without a direct order or financing from Osama bin Laden's terror network.

Steve Inskeep

Steve Inskeep is a host of NPR's Morning Edition and Up First.

Jerome Socolovsky

Jerome Socolovsky is NPR's Audio Journalism Trainer. During a career of more than three decades, mostly overseas, he has covered major events such as 1994 civil war in Yemen, the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the Lockerbie airliner bombing trial and international war crimes proceedings in The Hague. As NPR's correspondent in Madrid, he reported on the 2004 Madrid commuter rail attacks and the immigration crisis on Europe's southern border. Socolovsky has been an editor at Morning Edition, and on the National, International and Culture Desks at NPR. Prior to that, he was a reporter for the Associated Press and the Voice of America and served as Editor-in-Chief of Religion News Service from 2015-2018.