Spain's Supreme Court said Thursday it had acquitted five men convicted by a lower court of recruiting fighters for the Iraqi insurgency

Spain's Supreme Court said Thursday it had acquitted five men convicted by a lower court of recruiting fighters for the Iraqi insurgency and has ordered a probe into allegations they were tortured.
The court said it had doubts that testimony by one of the accused, which led to the convictions, had been obtained "freely and voluntarily," according to the ruling sent to The Associated Press.
The National Court sentenced the five to jail terms of up to nine years in January. It said they belonged to a cell that also helped suspects in the 2004 Madrid bombings evade police detection and flee Spain.
The trial, held late last year, heard that among those recruited was Belil Belgassem, an Algerian who killed 19 Italians and himself in a suicide attack at a military base in Iraq in 2003.
The five had claimed that after being arrested in the northeastern town of Vilanova i la Geltru in 2006 they were humiliated, insulted and threatened.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court asked state prosecutors to investigate the claims. The allegations were initially investigated and discarded by courts in Madrid and Vilanova i la Geltru.
Three of the five — two Moroccans and a Turk — were originally sentenced to between seven and nine years for membership in a terrorist group, while another Moroccan and an Algerian were sentenced to five years in prison for collaboration.
The alleged ringleader, Omar Nakhcha of Morocco, was said to have headed two well-organized and interconnected cells — one in Madrid and the other in Vilanova i la Geltru — that recruited fighters and raised money for rebel groups in Iraq.
The cells were believed to have had links to people in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Algeria, Morocco, Turkey, Syria and Iraq.
The five were among dozens of people arrested in Spain in recent years after security was stepped up following the Madrid train bombings that killed 190 people.:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.