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This is Juan Julián Merelo Guervós English-language blog. He teaches computer science at the University of Granada, in southern Spain. Come back here to read about politics, technology, with a new twist

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Time on Madrid bombing's verdict

Time, and probably the north-american public opinion, have been upset by the Madrid March 11th bombing verdict. Time has published a couple of articles about it. In Madrid Verdicts: Was Justice Done?, by Lisa Abend, there are two main points: the light sentences received by many convicts, and, second, the fact that the verdict makes no mention to Al Qaeda. And in the second article, Spain v. Jihad, by the same author, it mainly says that the police are taking a tough stance against jihadism, but that stance has not arrived yet to the judges:

Spanish security forces have greatly reformed themselves in the past three years--increasing staffing and reorganizing in order to connect the disparate dots of jihadist conspiracies. Spain's judges would do well to learn those lessons.

That statement is completely and absolutely wrong. Judges are bound to the evidence that the police brings them. If police is unable to come up with hard evidence, judges will not be able to connect any dot.
In the first article, she also quotes an Spanish expert on jihadism, Fernando Reinares, from Instituto Elcano, who was an adviser to the current government until the current interior minister arrived:

"In Spain, the tendency is toward conservative legal reasoning among judges," says Reinares. "With ETA, they're accustomed to only using direct, proven facts to convict. But international terrorism doesn't work that way — they leave different kinds of evidence. To convict, you have to take indirect evidence into account, especially when, as in this case, there is so much of it."

Well, pardon me, but that "indirect evidence" is called circumstancial and can lead to the electric chair in the USA, but it usually guarantees acquittal in the Spanish Justice system, fortunately.
At stake is the fact that the March bombing can be used by US hawks as another evidence on the war of terrorism. But we couldn't care less: it's a bombing, it's terrorism, and it's been convicted according to Spanish law. It does not bring closure, never will, but it's the best courts and police can offer.