A German trial of Algerians suspected of a bomb plot and links to the al Qaeda network began chaotically yesterday as one defendant shouted that his lawyers were Jews and God would defend him.
Lamine Maroni, one of four men accused of planning to bomb a Christmas market in France in 2000, gestured wildly and shouted in Arabic near the start of the trial that the court personnel and his own lawyer were Jews.
"You are all Jews. I don`t need you," the 31-year-old said, according to interpreters. "I don`t need a defence lawyer, God will defend me."
Maroni, in a beard, pink shirt and denim jacket, also cited the Koran and admonished his fellow defendants for standing up as the judge entered the Frankfurt court room.
The judge adjourned the trial for five minutes, Maroni was removed and the court resumed without him.
The other defendants sat quietly as the charges were read in proceedings lasting about three hours. The trial will resume next Tuesday.
None of the five men who are on trial is accused of involvement in the September 11 suicide attacks on the United States, for which Washington blames Osama bin Laden`s al Qaeda.
But the trial again highlights the presence of cells of suspected Islamic extremists in Germany. Three of the suicide hijackers who took part in the September attacks on US cities studied for years in the northern city of Hamburg.
Four of the men on trial in Frankfurt face charges of planning to bomb the Christmas market in Strasbourg, near the German border. Police foiled the plot when they arrested the men in Frankfurt in December 2000.
Prosecutors said the four had amassed weapons, ammunition and explosives for the attack and also had contacts with similar extremists in Britain and Italy.
Police had also found a home video of the Strasbourg market. They and the fifth man, arrested later, are all charged with "membership of a terrorist group".
Prosecutors allege that all five received military training in camps in Afghanistan financed by al Qaeda from 1998.
Police believe they were members of an al Qaeda unit called the Salafist Group for Call and Combat.
Prosecutors said that on their return from Afghanistan, they formed a cell aimed at acquiring weapons and planning attacks.
Federal prosecutor Volker Brinkmann told Reuters there was evidence that the men were indirectly linked to al Qaeda but said they were not directly connected to bin Laden.
The start to the trial coincided with the arrest of a man in Germany suspected of involvement in an explosion last Thursday outside a synagogue in Tunisia in which 16 people died, including 10 Germans.
Authorities did not immediately identify the man, suspected of having telephone contact with an attacker in Tunisia just before a truck blew up near the Djerba synagogue.
German authorities suspect the explosion was a deliberate attack rather than an accident as Tunisia insists.
There was no immediate confirmation of a report in German magazine Stern that authorities believed the detained man had links to al Qaeda.
Maroni`s co-defendants were Aeurobui Beandali, Salim Boukhari, Fouhad Sabour, who also holds French citizenship, and the one man not accused in the bomb plot, Samir Karimou.
At the trial, Beandali condemned the September 11 attacks. In a statement read out on his behalf, Beandali`s defence lawyer, Edgar Liebrucks, said his client deplored that "September 11 was done in the name of my religion".
Beandali will testify when the trial resumes. Defence lawyers have said the others do not plan to testify.
Since September 11 Germany has launched its biggest post-war investigation to track down suspects with links to al Qaeda. There have been a number of arrests but no charges.