Mother of detained lawyer says son isn't terrorist
Not 'a remote possibility' he had role in Madrid attacks, she says
PORTLAND, Oregon (CNN) -- The mother of a Portland lawyer detained as a material witness in the investigation of the deadly March 11 commuter train bombings in Madrid, Spain, said there's not "even a remote possibility" her son was involved with terrorism.
AvNell Mayfield flew to Portland on Saturday from her home in Kansas, hoping to visit her son, Brandon Mayfield, in jail as soon as Sunday.
"Reading what I have about the evidence and everything, it still doesn't seem like there's that strong a connection," Mayfield said. "Just knowing Brandon the way I do, I don't think that's even a remote possibility."
A Spanish Interior Ministry spokesman told CNN that Mayfield's fingerprints were found on a plastic bag inside a stolen van left near the station from which the three trains departed before being bombed. Inside the bag were the same kind of detonators that were used in the attacks, which killed 190 people, the spokesman said.
Spanish authorities are trying to determine whether Mayfield had recently been in Spain and, if so, whom he might have been in contact with while there, the spokesman said.
Mayfield, 37, was taken into custody by the FBI on Thursday, law enforcement sources said. U.S. sources said as a material witness, Mayfield can be held secretly and not charged.
His mother said her son's earlier work with a man who pleaded guilty in a terrorism case last year, as well as his own conversion to Islam, may have made him a target.
Mayfield had represented Jeffrey Battle, one of the chief defendants in the so-called "Portland Seven" case, in an unrelated child custody dispute.
Six members of the alleged Portland terror cell, including Battle, pleaded guilty in October to plotting to fight with the Taliban against the United States in Afghanistan.
"I think he probably knew these people," AvNell Mayfield said. "He represented one of the people in a child custody case, but that's his job. He practices family law. I think that's probably his only connection."
His mother called Mayfield "a very gentle, soft-spoken person."
"He's very compassionate," she said. "He's very helpful to other people. He's always been a very good family man, a good husband, excellent father. He's been a wonderful son and I'm just really proud of him, what he's accomplished."
AvNell Mayfield said the FBI search of her son's home frightened his wife and three young children.
"They are terrified," she said. "It's not easy to have people come into your home, people from your own country representing your government come into your home and ransack and tear and destroy and take away a loved one. So, it's been a very scary experience for all of them. They took their computers, the childrens' computers, they took everything."
Tom Nelson, a lawyer and friend of Mayfield, said Mayfield told him he hadn't left the country in years.
Nelson attended a closed hearing on the matter Thursday at the federal courthouse in Portland. Later, he criticized federal officials.
"I don't think much about the government's case or their tactics," he said.
