Rabei Osman, a 35-year-old-Egyptian who allegedly bragged during a wiretapped phone conversation about being the mastermind behind the Madrid bomb attacks of March 11, 2004, was acquitted of all charges on Wednesday.

According to media reports, 191 people were killed and more than 1,800 were wounded in the attack that occurred in Madrid on March 11. Twenty-eight people were charged for the attack. Osman was among the eight people that were acquitted, but more than a dozen were convicted.

Four of the accused masterminds - Youssef Belhadj, Hassan el Haski, Abdulmajid Bouchar and Rafa Zouhier - received lesser charges, like the one of belonging to a terrorist group. Their sentence is between 12 and 18 years.

Three others were accused of murder, in Europe’s worst Islamic militant attack. The verdicts were read out by Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez, in a courtroom with heavy security and dogs and police helicopters outside.

The sentences of the three lead suspects stretched into tens of thousands of years. The three suspects are: Jamal Zougam, a Moroccan that was convicted for placing one of the bombs; Emilio Suarez Trashorras, a Spaniard guilty for supplying the explosives in the attacks; and Osman Gnaoui, a Moroccan accused of being the right-hand of the leader.

Another 14 people were convicted for lesser charges like belonging to a group. The total number of the convicted is 21, out of 28 defendants.

The suspects are young Muslim men of North African origin who apparently acted in order to avenge the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq, but not following a direct order from Osama bin Laden.

The sentences for the lead suspects are symbolic because in Spain the maximum jail time is 40 years. Spain also does not have a penalty for life imprisonment.

The attacks left Spaniards divided between supporters of conservatives and Socialists, who accused the government of making Spain a target for al-Qaeda by supporting the Iraq war.