Prosecutors launched an investigation this week into suspicions that French Islamic radicals have gone to Iraq to fight with the resistance there, judicial officials said Wednesday. Information from the magistrates' other probes into terrorism networks and from French counterintelligence prompted the prosecutors' decision to open the investigation, said the judicial officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Anti-terrorist magistrates Jean-Francois Ricard et Jean-Louis Bruguiere will lead the investigation.
The formal opening of an investigation gives the two magistrates a legal framework in which to work, and allows them to question suspects and approach authorities elsewhere for information. So far, French officials suspect that only small numbers of French radicals perhaps no more than a dozen have sought to travel to Iraq. The body of a French citizen of North African origin was found in Fallujah in Iraq in July, judicial officials said. The daily Le Figaro reported Wednesday that police believe he had gone to Iraq to fight. |