Thirty-eight Muslim militants went on trial in Paris yesterday, accused of providing logistical support for a bloody 1995 bombing wave in France in which eight people died and more than 170 were injured.
The 38 are accused of helping members in Belgium and France of one of Algeria's most ruthless Islamist rebel groups, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), blamed by police for a series of bomb attacks in France between July and November 1995.
The accused face jail terms of up to 10 years for charges ranging from criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorist organisation and trafficking in arms and identity documents to immigration law violations.
The proceedings began with shouts by some of the accused that they had no hopes of a fair trial. Most of those on trial are French-born young men who are the children of immigrants of North African Arab origin. A few are Frenchmen of European origin who converted to Islam.
One of the accused is a 69-yearold woman of dual Franco-Algerian nationality whose son-in-law is also on on trial. Prosecutors say she lent other defendants a portable telephone and use of her flat.
The bombing wave began on July 25th, 1995, with the rush-hour explosion of a gas canister packed with black powder, nails and bolts on a suburban commuter train at the St Michel station in the heart of Paris's Latin Quarter.
Eight died and nearly 100 others were wounded in the St Michel blast, which was followed over the next three months by eight other attacks, two of which failed due to defective fuses.
The GIA said it staged the attacks, accusing France of backing the Algerian authorities in a deadly war with Islamic rebels which began after Algiers cancelled a 1992 general election that fundamentalist Muslims were poised to win.
Prosecutors say the accused took orders from the GIA leader, Mr Djamel Zitouni, in Algeria. They say the ringleader of the French support group is Mr Ali Touchent, alias Tarek (30), who is still sought by police.
His deputy, Mr Safe Bourada (27), is to be questioned from Tuesday on allegations he recruited young activists for the network.
These included Khaled Kelkal, whose fingerprints were found on a bomb meant for the high speed Paris-Lyon train, which had 800 people on board. The bomb failed to go off. Kelkal was shot dead by police in September 1995. The prosecution says several of the accused were trained by Islamic guerrillas in Afghanistan or Bosnia.
Under the French system, the defendants are not required to plead guilty or not guilty at this stage. But their lawyers have argued unsuccessfully that the trial should be delayed until those who actually placed the bombs are formally identified.