The British connection: judge says cleric is vital link

War on Terrorism: Spanish investigation

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London-based Muslim cleric named as a 'spiritual leader' of al-Qa'ida

He might have lived for years on benefits in a nondescript London semi on the fringe of a community of Islamic exiles, but according to a Spanish investigation into the al-Qa'ida network, Abu Qatada's influence extends across the world.

The 40-year-old Palestinian has been named in an indictment by the Spanish investigative judge Baltasar Garzon as "the spiritual head of the mujahedin in Europe".

The indictment, which led to 11 arrests, follows a four-year surveillance operation of a Madrid-based network accused of involvement in the preparation and organisation of the 11 September atrocities.

In his long indictment, Judge Garzon – known for his attempts to extradite the former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet – has given the clearest indication so far of a British connection to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

The judge has linked Abu Qatada, whose real name is Omar Mahmood Abu Omar, to another Islamic cleric, Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, who until last week was living a quiet suburban life in Madrid. Married to a Spanish woman, who converted to Islam, Mr Yarkas was a jovial family man who drove his children to school at the local Abu Bakr mosque – where his activities are alleged to have been centred.

According to Judge Garzon, Mr Yarkas was the leader of a gang that was "directly linked to the preparation and carrying out of the attacks". The indictment reveals that Mr Yarkas visited Britain at least 20 times prior to his arrest, and that his main contacts were Abu Qatada, Abu Walid – described by Judge Garzon as Qatada's "second man" – and Abu al-Hareth, said to be Osama bin Laden's "unofficial representative in Britain".

Judge Garzon also names as a British contact of Mr Yarkas a man called Abu Bashir, an "important mujahedin leader in Bosnia and Yemen" who is believed to be Algerian. All the men are identified only by their "kunyas" – traditional nicknames meaning, for instance "Son of Qatada" – that often cause difficulties for investigators.

The findings help to explain why Abu Qatada's name is believed to be at the top of an MI5 list of suspects facing internment with the introduction of new anti-terrorist legislation. The Spanish investigation claims to have evidence that Mr Qatada, who had his assets frozen in October after the British authorities found £180,000 in his London bank account, was a key figure in channelling funds raised in Europe to the al-Qa'ida network.

Mr Qatada, who has said that he has "absolutely no connection or relation with Osama bin Laden", has already been linked to other alleged Islamic terrorists. In evidence given to French authorities after his arrest in July, a bin Laden disciple called Djamel Beghal identified Mr Qatada as the man who had converted him to fundamentalism. Beghal, a 36-year-old Algerian, said that he moved to London from France in 1997, is accused of being part of a plot to blow up the US Embassy in Paris.

The London-based cleric is also linked to Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested in Minnesota in August after he went to a flying school and asked for instructions on how to fly but not how to take off or land. A French-Moroccan, Mr Moussaoui lived in Brixton, south London, for three years and attended Abu Qatada's weekly prayer meetings in the Fourth Feathers Youth Club, off Baker Street, in central London.

Mr Qatada, who does not speak English and whose following is drawn from the more extremist elements of London's North African and Middle-Eastern émigré communities, is banned from the nearby Regents Park Mosque because of his extremist views.

He is the subject of an extradition request from Jordan, which claims his group, the Army of Mohamed, planned to attack American and Jewish targets during the millennium celebrations. Mr Qatada, who was given leave to remain in Britain in 1993 after arriving as an asylum-seeker on a false passport, denies involvement.

The Spanish indictment also makes the connection between the Madrid cell, which grew from a fundamentalist group founded in 1994 called the "Soldiers of Allah", and the apartment in Hamburg where several of the 11 September hijackers are known to have lived.

It reveals that Mohamed Atta, the hijackers' suspected ringleader, had Mr Yarkas's telephone number in his Hamburg flat, and that Mr Yarkas listed Atta and three other members of the German cell among his contacts. Atta is known to have visited Spain on two occasions, the last as recently as July.

Chillingly, the indictment quotestelephone conversations between Mr Yarkas and a suspected suicide pilot, just weeks before the atrocities. On 8 August, a man known as "Shakur" told Mr Yarkas: "I've cut off all of my old relationships. I've prepared some things that I think you're going to like." Three weeks later, Shakur called again to say that he was feeling "more at ease psychologically". Then, in words the Spanish authorities believe are of acute significance, he added: "I'm giving classes, we've entered the field of aviation, and we've even cut the throat of the bird."

Mr Yarkas's arrest last week at his fourth-floor apartment in a block populated by civil servants and architects, astounded neighbours such as the beauty salesman Guillermo Gonzalez, who watched the suspect being taken away in handcuffs. "I can't express the astonishment I felt," he told The New York Times.

The Spanish investigators also believe that the suspects had helped to establish an al-Qa'ida training camp on one of the more remote of Indonesia's 3,000 islands, where European recruits were prepared for Holy War. According to US intelligence, this island is one of Mr bin Laden's most likely hideouts should he leave Aghanistan.