In the wake of this tightest most nail-biting of Italian elections Silvio Berlusconi

In the wake of this tightest, most nail-biting of Italian elections, Silvio Berlusconi, the man of torrential eloquence, had dried up. The nation’s journalists spent the best part of yesterday waiting for the gusher to resume. Mr Blair is likely to put a brave face on the defeat, although many will see it as a further nail in his own political coffin. Mr Berlusconi had been the only ally of Mr Blair and President George Bush in Europe after Jose Maria Aznar, the Spanish prime minister, was defeated in the aftermath of the Madrid bombings in March 2004. The defeat of Silvio Berlusconi has left Tony Blair isolated in Europe as the last political leader supporting the war in Iraq. Initial reports that he came quietly were later contradicted: the man once known as The Tractor for his efficiency with a machine-gun, who was said by his first boss to “shoot like an angel”, first denied his true identity, then fought to stay free..

Bernardo Provenzano, the capo di capi of the Sicilian Mafia who had been sought by the authorities for more than 40 years, was caught yesterday morning in a farmhouse outside Corleone, his home town in Sicily

He was alone, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. He said: “To say this is an autonomous cell who simply decided [to carry out the bombing] one morning seems a weak argument.” He described the accused as “secondary actors” in the conspiracy.. His motivation was said to be purely financial.Judge del Olmo said that he had investigated two separate networks – the first directly involved in the bombings and the second those who collaborated with the planning and helped the terrorists escape.He concluded they had plotted the atrocity to coincide with the general election in Spain on 13 March and found no evidence linking the attacks to Eta.But Vicente Martin Pujalte, of the conservative opposition party, said they were still unconvinced by the “insufficient conclusion”. He agreed to arrange the theft of the explosives from the mines where he had worked. Both Mr Zougam and Mr Bouchar and the three others named in the indictment had links to the Moroccan Islamic Fighters’ Group (GICM), which carried out the Casablanca bombings in May 2003.Mr Trashorras came into contact with the Islamic gang in jail while he was serving a sentence for drug dealing and the Moroccans were serving time for other non-terrorist crimes. He was downstairs when the apartment was surrounded by anti-terrorist police.

He is accused of telephoning his associates to warn them of an impending raid by the police before escaping.Mr Bouchar was arrested in Serbia a year later, while carrying false Iraqi papers, and extradited to Spain. His fingerprints were also found in the house outside Madrid where the bombs were manufactured.According to the indictment, another Moroccan, Abdelmajid Bouchar, was in the bomb-making apartment when a separate group of alleged attackers blew themselves up. A holdall, found in the wreckage of one of the trains contained an unexploded bomb connected by wires to a mobile phone. Police were able to trace the SIM card to a phone shop owned by Mr Zougam. He was charged with 192 murders, including the death of a policeman killed during a raid on suspected bombers a few weeks after the attacks.The train bombings led to the downfall of the then conservative government of Jose Maria Aznar, who initially blamed the bombings on the Basque separatist group Eta.Among the five Moroccan nationals charged with murder was Jamal Zougam, the first man arrested after the massacre.

Another 23 were charged with collaboration.
The indictment, which runs to almost 1,750 pages, concludes that the attacks were carried out by local radical Islamists who were inspired by, but not directly linked to, al-Qa’ida.The 29th man charged over the bombings was Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras, a former miner who provided the bombers with plastic explosives. After a two-year investigation, Judge Juan Del Olmo charged five people, all Moroccan nationals, with 191 counts of murder and 1,755 attempted murders, when they blew up three commuter trains in the Spanish capital. Some suggest the secret of the violins’ rich resonance lies in the age of the wood or special varnishes or wood treatments It would also require the deft touch of a skilful craftsman. “There are so many parameters involved that it will be very difficult to put the computer findings into practice,” said Roland Nilsson, a violin builder in Malmo in southern Sweden.A Stradivarius violin was sold at Christie’s auction house in New York last year for just over $2m (£1.1m).. A Spanish judge has launched one of Europe’s largest terrorism prosecutions, charging 29 people in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings.