A very interesting point is made by the good folks at PowerLine.

Spain just convicted one person for conspiring to commit the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by meeting with Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. (Several others were convicted of either belonging to or aiding a terrorist cell).

In fact, the Spanish are so proud of these convictions that we know they must be based on factual evidence....

Some analysts here hailed the verdict as at least a partial affirmation of the Spanish approach to fighting Islamic terrorism, which under Judge Baltasar Garzón has emphasized legal prosecutions over military action and intelligence gathering." This is a clear sign that the rule of law has instruments that can be used to fight terrorism," said Jesús Nuñez Villaverde, director of the Institute for the Study of Conflicts and Humanitarian Action, a research group in Madrid. "It shows that there are effective methods that are not Guantánamo."

However, in the 9/11 Commission report detailing the planning of the attacks we find this contradictory information:

Atta arrived in Madrid on July 8. He spent the night in a hotel and made three calls from his room, most likely to coordinate with Binalshibh. The next day, Atta rented a car and drove to Reus to pick up Binalshibh; the two then drove to the nearby town of Cambrils. Hotel records show Atta renting rooms in the same area until July 19, when he returned his rental car in Madrid and flew back to Fort Lauderdale. On July 16, Binalshibh returned to Hamburg, using a ticket Atta had purchased for him earlier that day. According to Binalshibh, they did not meet with anyone else while in Spain.

As PowerLine says:

It's interesting that the September 11 Commission found no persuasive evidence that Atta and bin al-Shibh met with anyone else while they were in Spain. Their authority to the contrary? Bin al-Shibh himself. It isn't clear why the Commission considered the captured Yemeni terrorist to be such a reliable source; common sense would suggest otherwise. It's significant that bin al-Shibh is also the authority for the claim that Atta never went to Prague to meet with an Iraqi intelligence agent. Maybe the Commission's trust in that assertion should also be re-thought.