Terrorists don’t seem to be very good drivers:
Spanish police were agonisingly close to foiling the Madrid train bombings, it was disclosed yesterday.
A car carrying the explosives used in the March 11 massacre was stopped by police but its Arab driver was fined only for a minor traffic offence, it was reported.
The boot of the Volkswagen was packed with 220 lb of industrial dynamite being transported to Madrid after it had been stolen from a coal mine at Aviles in northern Spain during the last week of February, the El Pais newspaper said.
The car, which had been stolen, was stopped by two Civil Guard patrolmen near Benavente, in the province of Leon, north of Madrid.
But their suspicions were not aroused when they checked the car’s registration as the owner had not yet reported it missing. They failed to recognise that the driver was not the registered owner.
The driver was fined for a minor infringement and allowed to drive on. Three of the four bombing suspects are thought to have been in the car.
I wonder how the exchange between the police and the driver. Either the latter is a cool player and eluded suspicion, or the police officer missed signals which could have prompted him (or her) to investigate the driver further. As I recall, the millennium terrorist plot was busted because a border agent detained a driver who was acting suspiciously.