Belgium Tries Suspected Syria Jihadist Group

Forty six people, most of them still at large, went on trial in Belgium on Monday for suspected membership of a group believed to be sending jihadist fighters to Syria.

Armed police guarded the court in the northern port city of Antwerp where 16 people alleged to be part of Sharia4Belgium, including its head Fouad Belkacem, are being tried on charges of leading a terrorist organisation.

If convicted, they could face 20 years in prison.

The remaining 30 are being tried on charges of belonging to Sharia4Belgium.

Present for the trial were Belkacem, a Salafist ideologue known for his sermons in the streets and on the Internet, and seven others.

The defendants who are at large are believed to be in Syria where some of them may have been killed, according to the federal justice office.

Investigators said Belkacem never traveled to Syria, unlike most of the members of the group, but he was the "catalyst" who prompted many to go and fight there.

Sharia4Belgium, based in Antwerp, campaigned for the introduction of Sharia Islamic law in Belgium.

In 2012, it said it was disbanding but the authorities suspect that it has continued to recruit dozens of volunteers to fight in Syria.

Officials say that up to 400 Belgian nationals may have gone to fight in Syria, with about a quarter having returned home.

The trial comes five months after a deadly attack on the Jewish museum in the center of Brussels raised fears of a resurgence of anti-Semitic violence in Europe and of terror strikes from foreign fighters returning from Syria.

The main suspect in the attack which left four people dead is a Frenchman, Mehdi Nemmouche, who spent more than a year fighting with Islamist extremists in Syria and is now also being held in Belgium on charges of "murder in a terrorist context".