Trial of 12 Begins in Plot To Kill Dutch Officials
ROTTERDAM -- Prosecutors on Monday launched their case against 12 suspected Muslim extremists who are accused of plotting to derail democracy in the Netherlands by killing prominent politicians.
Prosecutors said the men had copies of a letter left on the body of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh and handbooks on how to carry out ritual Islamic murders. In tapped telephone conversations, the men spoke of slaying nonbelievers like sacrificial lambs, the court was told.
A number of them trained in Pakistan to carry out armed attacks, prosecutors said.
Defense attorneys said their clients were acquaintances, not terrorists, and called the evidence against them weak.
The defendants, mostly of North African ancestry, were arrested in the days following van Gogh's slaying -- a crime that stunned the nation and triggered a wave of retaliatory attacks on Muslim buildings. Prosecutors may still bring charges in that attack.
Europe
• VATICAN CITY -- Only Pope John Paul II can decide whether it would be good for the church for him to retire and not reign for life, his secretary of state said.
"Let's leave that up to the conscience of the pope," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the pope's top aide, told reporters when asked if the pontiff had considered stepping down.
The pope, 84, was hospitalized with breathing problems last week, renewing debate on what the church would do if he became incapacitated.
• TBILISI, Georgia -- A team of FBI agents will help investigate the death of Georgia's prime minister as well as a car bombing that killed three policemen, U.S. Ambassador Richard Miles said.
The move underscored U.S. efforts to promote stability in Georgia, a former Soviet republic.
Georgia was roiled following the death Thursday of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvaniya from what officials said was apparent carbon monoxide poisoning. Many Georgians suggested a possible link between his death and a fatal car bombing in the provincial town of Gori two days earlier.
The AMericas
• MEXICO CITY -- Mexico has tightened security for President Vicente Fox after details of his movements were leaked from inside his office to drug traffickers waging a bitter war with the government.
