Madrid — A Spanish judge charged two more suspects in the Madrid railway bombings early Tuesday, court officials said, bringing the total number of people charged in the case to 14.
Judge Juan del Olmo released three other people after hours of questioning at the National Court.
Shortly after the hearing ended, an investigator speaking on condition of anonymity, said another suspect had been arrested, but gave no details.
Mr. Del Olmo charged Basel Ghayoun, a Syrian, with mass murder and belonging to a terrorist organization. Hamed Ahmidam, a Moroccan, was charged with collaborating with a terrorist organization and a drug charge unrelated to the March 11 bombings, which killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800. The latest victim to die was a 49-year-old woman who succumbed to her injuries at a Madrid hospital on Monday.
Court officials said two witnesses, including one who was injured in the attack, had recognized Mr. Ghayoun on one of the commuter trains that were bombed.
Both of the accused said they were innocent, but acknowledged they knew some of the other suspects being held in connection with the attack, including prime suspect Jamal Zougam, court officials said.
The charges stop short of a formal indictment but suggest that the court has strong evidence against the men. They can be jailed for up to two years while investigators gather more evidence.
Of the 22 people arrested since the train bombings, 14 have been charged and a total of six have been released.
A suspect whose arrest was announced Friday has not been identified and has yet to appear before the court.
On Tuesday, Mr. Del Olmo released Mr. Ahmidam's brother Said Ahmidam; Mohammed Almallah Dabas, a Spanish citizen of Syrian descent; and Fouad Almorabit, also from Morocco.
Mr. Almorabit had tried to arrange to study in Germany, court officials said. German investigators last week raided a Darmstadt apartment where a Moroccan suspect in Spanish custody had stayed briefly last year, but authorities did not identify the suspect.
Court officials said Hamed Ahmidam had lived in a rural house outside Madrid where investigators believe the attackers prepared the explosives and stuffed them into backpacks.
A Morocco-based terrorist cell with possible links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and al-Qaeda itself are the main focus of suspicion in Spain's worst terrorist attack.
In the immediate aftermath of the March 11 attacks the government insisted that the armed Basque separatist group ETA was its prime suspect, even as evidence emerged of an Islamic link.
But in an interview published Monday in the newspaper ABC, Interior Minister Angel Acebes said investigators had turned up no evidence of ETA involvement. "In the investigation, none," Mr. Acebes was quoted as saying.
Investigators have analyzed a videotape in which a man claiming to speak on behalf of al-Qaeda said the group carried out the Madrid attack in reprisal for Spain's backing of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Three days after the bombings, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's conservative government was defeated in general elections by the anti-war Socialists.
Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero pledged to remove Spain's 1,300 soldiers from Iraq unless the United Nations takes charge of the occupation. Mr. Zapatero says both the war and occupation are illegal because they lack a U.N. mandate.
Mr. Zapatero's campaign manager, Jose Blanco, told Spanish National Radio on Monday that plans to withdraw troops from Iraq by June 30 remain in place unless the occupation gets a U.N. mandate.
Facing criticism from the United States and other countries, an aide to Spain's incoming defense minister, Jose Bono, said Monday that the nation will double its military contingent in Afghanistan to 250 soldiers this summer.
