Belgian Iraq terror trial begins

Degauque is thought to have been Iraq's first female European bomber

The trial has begun in Brussels of six men accused of being part of an Islamic militant group that recruited a Belgian woman for a suicide bombing in Iraq.

Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old convert to Islam from Charleroi, blew herself up near a US patrol on 9 November 2005. No-one else was killed by the blast.

Officials say it was the first suicide attack by a European woman in Iraq.

The six men, most of them Belgians of North African descent, are also charged with forgery and selling stolen goods.

The trial is taking place amid fears that militant groups are using Belgium as a base for launching attacks in other countries.

In February 2006, a Belgian court found three men guilty of being leaders of a Belgian cell of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, which was linked to the March 2004 train bombings in Madrid and the attacks in Casablanca in May 2003.

'Recruiters'

Prosecutors said Belgian security services had been investigating the group currently in court since July 2005, and believed they had been planning to send more volunteers to Iraq.

They were recruiting people in Belgium and one of them was this Belgian woman Lieve Pellens Journey of female bomber

"The principal charge they face is being a member, and for one of the men, a leader of a terrorist group," Belgian public prosecutor Lieve Pellens told the Reuters news agency.

"They were recruiting people in Belgium and one of them was this Belgian woman," she added.

The man accused of being the group's leader, Bilal Soughir, is already in prison and could face a 10-year sentence if he is convicted.

Prosecutors said Degauque had been a member of the group along with her second husband, Issam Goris, a Belgian of Moroccan origin.

He went to Iraq with her and is believed to have been shot dead by US troops as he tried to launch a suicide bomb attack himself.

The trial is expected to last about four weeks.