Police have arrested Al-Qaeda trio'

Explosive material was seized at an address in San Roque where a Turkish man was arrested. Two other men were held near Almuradiel. 

 They are thought to have been planning an attack in Spain or elsewhere in Europe, according to the Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz. 

 The arrests are part of one the biggest international operations to date against al-Qaeda, Mr Diaz said. 

 The material is currently being tested but is thought to be enough to "destroy a bus", he told reporters.

 Mr Diaz also said one of the suspects was a senior al-Qaeda operative with extensive experience "in the manufacture of poison and car bombs". 

 One of the men put up "massive resistance" during the arrests, he added. None of them have been named. Police found the explosives in a flat in the southern town of La Linea de Concepcion in Andalusia and arrested a Turkish national at the address.

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Meet The Mother who killed her children in hotel room

The British mother on trial in Spain for murdering her two children appeared furious yesterday as DNA tests presented to the court revealed the identity of their father is a mystery. Lianne Smith claimed the tests must be 'mistaken' after they showed that her partner, TV hypnotist Martin Smith, was not the father of either child.

 Rebecca, five, and baby Daniel, 11 months, were suffocated by their mother in a hotel on the Costa Brava in May 2010. Today a psychiatrist told the court Smith killed her children 'out of love', and had made a pact with her partner - a convicted paedophile who hanged himself earlier this year - that they would k*ll themselves if ever they were separated. Mr Smith took his own life in his prison cell in Manchester in January, believing his partner had killed his son and his daughter. But they were not his, the jury at Girona Provincial Court, in North East Spain was told. A police witness revealed: 'DNA tests on the children showed that Martin Smith was not their biological father.' 

Their mother, 45, insisted the tests must be wrong. The court was not told whether Rebecca and Daniel shared the same father. However, they were born in different countries. Martin Smith, who was found d*ad in his cell in January Smith gave birth to Daniel while on the run in Spain with the fugitive paedophile, who had fled child s*x charges in Britain.

 Her daughter Rebecca had been born in the UK while she was living with Mr Smith. Today forensic psychiatrist Itziar Idiaquez Alberdi told the court: ‘(Lianne Smith) believed the children would be taken away from her (by social services) and institutionalised. For her, this was worse than d*ath. ‘She had spoken about this with her partner and they had talked about taking their own lives if they were ever separated. ‘They made a plan, they made a pact.’

 Asked by the prosecutor if Smith could distinguish between good and evil when she k*lled the children, the psychiatrist replied: ‘She was convinced that it was the best thing she could do. ‘She k*lled them out of love. She loved the children.’ Prison psychiatrist Harry Barker said Smith viewed the deaths of her two children as ‘an unavoidable catastrophe’. 

She suffered from a psychosis that made her lose contact with reality, he told the court. Smith had asked her five-year-old daughter Rebecca if she would prefer to live ‘a few very happy days with her mother or a long time without her mother’, he told the court. The girl had apparently answered she wanted to stay with her mother, the psychiatrist said. 

After k*lling the children, Smith cut her wrists and neck and attempted to hang herself. But forensic doctor Elisabet Vazquez Martinez told the jury Smith´s injuries were ‘very superficial’ and she had not made a serious attempt to k*ll herself. Earlier in the trial, Girona Provincial Court, in northeast Spain, heard evidence from Smith's estranged mother, who claimed her daughter had been happy before she fell under the spell of her 'controlling' partner.

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Spanish firm unveils electronic 'smart bed' that makes itself

 

 According to OHEA, the Spanish furniture company that created this bed, here's how it works. In just 50 seconds two mechanical arms, one on each side and each equipped with a roller, carry the blanket back to the head of the bed. 

As it approaches, the pillows are lifted on two shelves allowing the blanket to neatly slot in underneath. They are then lowered and the bed looks neat and is completely made.  The owner does not even have to remember to turn the device on. A switch at the foot of the bed provides manual and automatic settings. Flipped to automatic, the bed can sense when somebody has just got up and starts making itself three seconds later. 

A built-in safety device ensures that it cannot operate when there is a person lying on the mattress. OHEA listed the smart bed as coming soon. You gonna get one when it eventually becomes available? Watch how it works after the cut...

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Pimps Arrested in Spain for 'Barcoding' Women

Police in Spain arrested 22 alleged pimps who purportedly tattooed women with bar codes as a sign of ownership and used violence to force them into prostitution.

Police are calling the gang the "bar code pimps." Officers freed one 19-year-old woman who had been beaten, held against her will and tattooed with a bar code and an amount of money — €2,000 ($2,650) — which investigators believe was the debt the gang wished to extort before releasing her.

The woman had also been whipped, chained to a radiator and had her hair and eyebrows shaved off, according to an Interior Ministry statement

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Woman killed workmate then used semen from brothel to make it look as though she'd been raped and murdered

A Spanish businesswoman killed her workmate and then injected the semen of male prostitutes into her mouth and vagina to make it look as if she had been raped and murdered.

María Ángeles Molina was jailed for 22 years yesterday for the grisly crime committed to cover up identify theft and plot to steal €1million in an insurance scame.

The killer, known as Angie, lured her friend Ana Páez to a Barcelona apartment she had fraudulently rented in her victim's name just three days before.

She sedated her friend before placing a plastic bag over her head and sealing it with gaffer tape.

To make it look like her victim had been raped, Molina then injected the semen, which she had obtained from a brothel.

The elaborate cover-up came after Molina had stolen Páez's identity and used it to take out bank loans and insurance policies worth €1million in her name.

She was pictured on CCTV entering a bank, wearing a wig, to withdraw €600 from an account in her victim's name.

Barcelona High Court yesterday sentenced Molina to 22 years in prison. It noted 'she took advantage of her friendship to steal ID documents with the intention of gaining economic benefit'.

She was given 18 years for the murder, which took place on February 19, 2008, and a further four years for fraud.

The court heard that, to gain an alibi, Molina travelled to Zaragoza in a Porsche to recover the ashes of her father. When she returned to the Catalan capital she carried out her sickening crime.

Police searching her home found an unopened bottle of chloroform and an insurance policy in Páez’s name.

And Molina's boyfriend at the time also passed police Páez's original passport and ID card which he found stashed behind Molina's bathroom cistern.

Molina denied the charges and said she was out shopping at the time of the murder. She told the court: 'Without yoghurts or condensed milk I am nothing.'

But the court ruled: 'The amount and the relevance of the evidence, amply accredited, leave no doubt as to the identity of the killer.'

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