( AP ) - A Spanish judge has indicted 22 people suspected of links to a recruitment network sending fighters to Iraq, a court said Tuesday.
National Court judge Baltasar Garzon charged 18 of the suspects with belonging to a terrorist organization, and the other four were accused of collaborating with it, the statement said.
The cell's mission was to send potential fighters to Iraq "so they might join in terrorist activity sponsored and directed by al-Qaida," Garzon said.
One of those arrested, Moroccan Omar Nakhcha, 24, was also charged with helping some of those involved in the 2004 Madrid train bombings to escape from justice. The bombings killed 191 people and wounded 1,800.
A total of 28 people, most of them Moroccans, have gone to trial in connection with the bombings. The five-month trial ended in July and a verdict is expected in late October.
In France, meanwhile, police detained six men suspected of being connected to a group in that country that recruited Islamic fighters to send to Iraq, officials said.
The suspects were close to six people arrested in February for allegedly working with an al-Qaida cell in Saudi Arabia, police and judicial officials said.
Prosecutors said in February that the recruits were initially sent to Egypt to learn Arabic and religion in radical schools. Via a cell in Saudi Arabia linked to al-Qaida, the recruits were then put in touch with a network in Syria that took them to Iraq to carry out attacks, prosecutors said.