(The Associated Press circulated the following article on March 2.)
MADRID, Spain — A suspect in the Madrid train bombings was found to possess a sketch and technical details about Grand Central Terminal in New York, a report said Wednesday.
The sketch and data were on a computer disk seized about two weeks after the March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people last year, the newspaper El Mundo said.
Spanish police turned the disk over to the U.S. agents from the FBI and CIA in December once they understood the scope of the technical data, the report said.
A U.S. Embassy official confirmed that American law enforcement authorities received information related to Grand Central Terminal from Spanish authorities in December. The official declined to go into detail.
However, a Spanish police official said Spanish and U.S. authorities don’t lend much credibility to the sketch, saying it is not even clear it is supposed to be a picture of Grand Central Terminal.
The police official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, confirmed that the sketch was found in the home of Mouhannad Almallah, a Syrian who was arrested in Madrid on March 24 but later released, although he is still considered a suspect.
Almallah was questioned over his alleged ties to two suspects jailed in connection with the attack after witnesses placed them aboard trains targeted in the string of 10 bombs, El Mundo said.
A total of 24 people are in jail over the attack, although at least 40 more who were arrested and released are still considered suspects.