Accused says he was not in Iraq

17 October 2007

BRUSSELS – Younes Loukili, one of the accused in the trial against the alleged members of a Belgian network that was sent as suicide bombers to Iraq, denied on Thursday in the court that he had ever been to Iraq to fight there.

“I don’t know Iraq, nor have I ever fought there, I am not a terrorist,” stated the 29-year-old Loukili after being questioned for several hours by the president of the court.

Loukili is suspected of being part of the network that sent Muriel Degauque to Iraq. The woman from Charleroi blew herself up on 9 November 2005 in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. She was the first westerner to blow herself up in an attack in Iraq.