Spain al Qaeda man says 2004 bombs were due to Iraq

Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas (C), also known as Abu Dahdah, looks on as he listens to his sentence in Madrid in this September 26, 2005 file photo. Yarkas told a court on Tuesday he did not know the suspects accused of planning the Madrid train bombings in 2004 but the attack came as no surprise because of the Iraq war.

MADRID (Reuters) - The jailed former head of al Qaeda in Spain told a court on Tuesday he did not know the suspects accused of planning the Madrid train bombings in 2004 but the attack came as no surprise because of the Iraq war.

Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, was testifying as a witness at the trial of 29 suspects accused of involvement in the bombings on four Madrid commuter trains on March 11, 2004, which killed 191 people.

Yarkas, jailed for 12 years in 2006 for leading al Qaeda in Spain, told the court he did not know Youssef Belhadj, Rabei Osman el Sayed or Hassan El Haski, who are accused of planning the attacks.

He said he knew two others of the accused by sight and that another of them had once fixed a washing machine for him. He said he had known nothing about the attacks.

"I'm not surprised by what happened because of the war in Iraq," Yarkas said at the trial which began in February at a high-security Madrid courthouse.

Survivors gave a court the first eyewitness accounts of the killings and injuries inflicted by the bombings with victims calling for the perpetrators to be jailed for life.

"My ear was bleeding, my face was black and my hair burnt. I thought who could have done this to workers who are struggling? ... To a train full of workers and students who bring their best to society," said Francisco Garcia Castro, whose wife was also injured in the attack.

The bombs went off during the morning rush hour, catching many people on their way to work or school.

The mother of one victim called for respect for the victims and their families.

"I want respect for the victims, that those in power should stand up to their political responsibilities and that the people who did this should stay in prison for life."

Antonio Miguel Utrera, who was then 18 and on his way to university, said he suffered two blood clots which caused him paralysis and deafness.

"It was like a dance of sleepwalkers ... Silence. People were walking without looking at each other, looking at nothing," he said, talking of the immediate aftermath of the blasts.

"They had to reconstruct one of my ear drums and I'm still taking anti-depressants," he added.

Spain sent troops to help the U.S.-led effort in the Iraq war. Three days after the Madrid attacks, the worst of its type in Spanish history, the then conservative government lost a parliamentary election and the incoming Socialists ordered troops home.