The trial of 12 suspected Muslim extremists charged with aiding and abetting Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network opened today in The Netherlands.
The men are facing charges in Rotterdam that range from forgery and drug trafficking to "aiding the enemy of the Dutch state and her allies in a time of armed conflict".
"The enemy in this case is the Afghan Taliban regime and the al-Qaeda network," Mr Wim Bruin of the Dutch national prosecutor's office said.
According to the prosecution, some of the men on trial were recruiting and training men to fight for the militant Islamic cause. To pay for their operations they allegedly turned to drug dealing.
They are accused of involvement in recruiting two Dutch nationals of Moroccan origin who were killed in clashes in the Indian state of Kashmir in January 2002.
The others are suspected of having been trained as jihad [Muslim holy war] warriors. In police raids tapes were found with farewell messages from some of the suspects to their families. The prosecution says those "testaments" show they were preparing to die fighting.
This is the second trial of suspected Islamic militants in The Netherlands. The first trial collapsed in December last year after the court acquitted four suspected Islamic militants charged with plotting to bomb US targets in Europe.
The court found that key pieces of evidence were illegally obtained. The judges said police had no legal grounds to detain suspects or raid their homes because they acted on information from the Dutch intelligence service AIVD without first launching their own police inquiry.
The court said the AIVD does not say where it gets its information from and therefore cannot be checked.
Defence attorneys for the 12 men on trial today say their clients were also detained solely on AIVD evidence. They argue there is no evidence to back up the prosecutor's charges.
AFP