MADRID : Spain ended an emotional day of mourning for the victims of the Madrid train bombings a year ago with a solemn requiem service evening attended by King Juan Carlos and leading politicians.
The service came at the end of a day of memories so painful for the relatives of the 191 people killed when 10 bombs went off on four trains targeted by Islamic extremists that many of those who lost loved ones stayed away from official ceremonies to grieve in private.
Madrid Archbishop Antonio Maria Rouco Varela used the occasion at Madrid's Almudena cathedral to insist that terrorism would never cow Spanish society, rocked by the worst attacks in its history 12 months ago.
Quoting Saint Paul, the archbishop urged the peoples of the world "to overcome evil with good."
Many of the 1,900 people who survived the blasts, the worst attack perpetrated anywhere in Europe since the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, are still recovering from the physical and psychological injuries.
King Juan Carlos, clad in a black coat and black tie for the sombre occasion, attended the service with Queen Sofia, who wore a black stole.
Heir to the throne Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia, who married in the cathedral last May, also attended the service, as did Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and leader of the main conservative opposition Mariano Rajoy.
There were no speeches at the main events throughout the day, as victim's associations had requested that silence was the appropriate way to honor those who died or were wounded in the blasts.
Earlier, traffic came to a halt and commuters stood in silence as Spain showed its enduring grief.
A five-minute silence from midday (1100 GMT) left the capital eerily quiet as people bowed their heads to honour the dead.
Trains across the country stopped and television screens everywhere scrolled the long list of the names of the victims, killed at three railway stations in carnage blamed on a group loyal to the Al-Qaeda extremist network.
Juana Leal placed flowers and two lit candles on the platform of El Pozo station in a working-class district to mark the spot her husband, Angel Pardillos Checa, died.
After the moment of silence, the king and Zapatero opened a "forest of remembrance" where 192 olive and cypress trees will pay lasting tribute to the 191 victims and a policeman who was killed in April last year when the attack's suspected masterminds blew themselves up as officers raided their flat.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Moroccan King Mohammed VI attended the ceremony, where the minutes of silence came to an end as a lone woman cellist played Pablo Casals' "El Cant dells Ocells" (The Song of the Birds).
Annan earlier told a news conference that "the world mourns" with the bereaved.
The emotional day began with Madrid's 650 churches all ringing at sunrise, at the exact time the bombs went off a year ago.
Spain is still investigating the blasts, though several victims' relatives have expressed disgust with politicking that has dominated the months-long probe.
Twenty-two suspected Islamic extremists, most of them Moroccans, are in jail.
For three days preceding the anniversary of the attacks, Madrid played host to an international conference dedicated to the issue.
The Madrid conference, grouping former presidents and heads of state of democratic countries, on Friday presented the "Madrid Agenda", a series of recommendations aimed at combatting terrorism.
Meanwhile, the group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, vowed to defeat "infidels and apostates" in a statement published on the Internet on Friday in response to the Madrid conference on terrorism. - AFP