MADRID, June 1 (UPI) -- The Spanish Supreme Court Thursday overturned the conviction of an al-Qaida suspect for helping to plan the Sept. 11 attacks.
The court repealed the 15-year prison sentence handed to Syrian-born Imad Yarkas, but upheld a further 12-year sentence for membership of a terrorist organization.
Yarkas, 42, also known as Abu Dahdah, is alleged to have led a Spanish al-Qaida cell since 1995. He was eventually arrested in November 2001, around four years after Spanish police began monitoring his telephone calls.
He was sent to prison in September last year along with 17 other men found guilty of aiding the terror network.
Three of the men -- Moroccans Driss Chebli, Sadik Merizak and Abdelaziz Benyaich -- were also acquitted by the court. They had already been released in April, at the request of prosecutors.
At the original trial, prosecutors claimed that a cell led by Yarkas had provided funding and logistics for the planners of the Sept. 11 attacks. He and Chebli had set up a meeting in June 2001 allegedly attended by Mohammed Atta, one of the attack ringleaders, they said.
They demanded the men be jailed for 25 years for each of the 2,973 people killed in the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
However, earlier this year they asked for his conviction to be quashed because of lack of evidence.
The reasons behind Thursday's verdicts are due to be published at a later date.
