Madrid, Spain ? Spain’s leading investigating judge issued the first known indictment against Osama bin Laden in the Sept. 11 attacks on Wednesday, accusing al-Qaida of using the country as a base to plot the devastating strikes on New York and Washington.

Investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzon indicted 35 people for terrorist activities connected to bin Laden’s al-Qaida network. In a nearly 700-page document, Garzon wrote that Spain served “as a place or base for resting, preparation, indoctrinating, support and financing” of al-Qaida.

The indictment charged bin Laden and nine others with membership in a terrorist organization and “as many crimes of terrorist murder … as there were dead and injured” in the deadly Sept. 11 attacks.

Bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, is under indictment in the United States for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and is the object of a manhunt by thousands of U.S.-led coalition troops and Afghan forces.

Justice Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. government did not play a direct role in the Spanish indictment. But the officials did say that the United States and its European allies had been sharing vast amounts of information on al-Qaida and the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks. Some of that may have been used to build the case in Spain.

Garzon said terrorism was one of the crimes included in Spain’s universal justice legislation, under which some offenses, such as crimes against humanity, can be tried here even if they were committed elsewhere.