Beckham and the bomber

One of the Madrid bombing suspects is obsessed with David Beckham, it was revealed today.

The England captain came face to face with Moroccan Mohammed Bekkali two weeks before the rushhour carnage.

Bekkali, 31, who calls himself Bekks after his hero, waited outside Real Madrid's training ground and got the player to sign his birthday card. Police found the card when they raided Bekkali's home in a Madrid suburb after a mobile phone found in one of the unexploded bombs led them to him.

Bekkali, a former science student, bought his father a No23 Beckham shirt when the star signed for Real Madrid. Club spokeswoman Marta Sant Estaban said: "I knew he had been there. We can't stop people waiting outside for the players. There is a public area where anyone can go."

Bekkali is being held with other suspects at a top-security jail.

One of them, it emerged today, is a former Spanish miner who is alleged to have told members of the terrorist cell where they could steal 220lb of dynamite. José Emilio Suarez Trashorras - the only Spaniard so far implicated - was paid £2,380 plus 1lb of cannabis for his services, a source close to the investigation told the Evening Standard today.

Suarez, 30, has denied knowing they were going to use the explosives for the terrorist attack on four packed commuter trains on 11 March.

Investigating judge Juan del Olmo today ordered Suarez and three other suspects to be held in solitary confinement.

The four jailed today join five others - three Moroccans and two Indian nationals - who were jailed by the same judge last Friday.

Four more men, all Moroccans, were arrested in connection with the atrocity yesterday. Another man held has since been released.

The outrage is believed to have been carried out by members of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Combatant Group of Morocco - GICM - which is blamed for the suicide bombings in Casablanca last May which left 43 dead.

Suarez, who has a minor criminal record for drugs offences, is reported to have met members of the Moroccan terrorist cell in a bar in Lavapies, an area in central Madrid popular with immigrants. He allegedly told them where industrial explosives were kept at a mine where he used to work in his home town of Aviles. He is believed to have taken them there last month. Lavapies is where suspect Jamal Zougam, arrested two days after the bombings, ran a mobile phone shop. Police know that the terrorists used mobile phones to detonate the bombs hidden in rucksacks. Police in Madrid this afternoon revised the official death toll to 190 from 202, saying there had been errors in identifying bodies.

Tony Blair today faces difficult talks with Spain's newly-elected premier, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has condemned the invasion of Iraq as a disaster.

The talks come before tomorrow's memorial service in Madrid for victims of the train bombings, a ceremony which will also be attended by Prince Charles.

Publicly, the two leaders are expected to exchange warm words, greeting each other as fellow leaders of the European centre-Left. But behind the scenes Mr Blair will be hoping to persuade Mr Zapatero to think again about his threat to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq. Mr Blair will have dinner tonight with the out-going premier, José Maria Aznar.