Inquiry Says F.B.I. Erred in Implicating Man in Attack

By DAVID STOUT

Published: January 7, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 - Overconfidence in its own fingerprint-identification technology and sloppy paperwork contributed to the F.B.I.'s wrongly implicating a Portland, Ore., lawyer in the deadly 2004 Madrid train bombing, a Justice Department investigation said Friday.

But the investigation, by the department's inspector general's office, said there had been no misconduct by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and no abuse of the antiterrorism USA Patriot Act in the case of the lawyer, Brandon Mayfield.