BRUSSELS (EJP)--- A Brussels criminal court sentenced two employees of the Belgian Islamic Centre to 10 months jail on Wednesday. They were convicted for inciting race hatred against Jews by spreading revisionist and xenophobic texts via the centre's website.

The plaintiffs' lawyers said the sentence was "memorable".

Abdel Rahman Ayachi, 26, and Raphaël Gendron, 30, run the centre's website. When leaving the courtroom, they said the "Jewish lobby" had "inspired" the complaint.

Besides the jail terms, they were each ordered to pay a fine of 15,000 euros and deposit 2,500 euros into the account of the "Centre for Equal Opportunities and Fight Against to Racism".

The anti-racism office, which is a Belgian public authority, lodged a complaint against the Islamic centre.

The monetary sentence is designed to compensate the Jewish community for the damage and insulting remarks made by the lawyer for the defence, Sebastien Courtoy, who declared that the Belgian law against revisionism was "fascist and totalitarian".

Some 20 other people - members of the "Dialogue and Sharing", a group that aims to promote at Jewish-Arab coexistence - had also lodged a complaint. They will each receive a symbolic compensation of 1 euro.

Racist video

The courtroom was full when the sentence was read by the president.

The two defendants were convicted for denying the Holocaust, minimalising the extent of Nazi crimes and inciting race hatred, especially against Jews, via a video report and prosecutable statements.

The Islamic centre's "assabyle.com" website had put a link to another site showing a video made by Lebanese students who associated Adolf Hitler with former Israeli foreign minister David Levy.

"To put a weblink on the website is considered as appropriation," Francois Sant'Angelo, a legal expert for the anti-racism centre, stressed.

The president of the court, Francoise de Lamine de Bex, said in the judgement: "The fact that the video was removed from the site didn't delete the infringement.

"Confusing Jews and Hitler is considered as incitement to hatred. Freedom of expression is not absolute in our democracy," she said.

The court also ruled that the two convicted were responsible for the content of messages posted on the site.

Praise for judgment

Sara Brajbart-Zajtman, co-president of the "Dialogue and Sharing" group, praised Belgian justice system for its judgement.

"We were also in the courtroom in the name of all Jews who were not protected by law when they were insulted or beaten," she told EJP.

In a press release, the plaintiffs insisted that their action was "not against Islam or against Muslims but rather against extremists who are instrumentalising religion to incite to hatred".

The Belgian Islamic centre, located in Molenbeek, a Brussels borough with a large Muslim population, is known for spreading extremist ideas, the Belgian press noted. 400,000 Muslims live in Belgium, mainly of Moroccan and Turkish origin.

The website's owner, Sheikh Bassam, who was present at the court, called the sentence a "masquerade". His son is among the two people condemned.

The website also published texts attacking Jews who were called "cowards" or "arrogant" and launched appeals for holy war. One of the texts, addressed to French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, supported suicide bombings.

First time

More than 150,000 messages were posted on the forum on the "assabyle.com" website. When the press first reported on it and when a complaint lodged, the website was closed and adopted a new name.

The court however rejected a demand that the judgment be publicised in full in the press. The two condemned will not be jailed as they were given a suspended sentence of three years for half of it. Prison sentences of less than three months are not executed in Belgium because of prison overpopulation.

It is the first time that the law against revisionism and incitement to hatred is applied in Belgium against an internet website.

Last year, a Moroccan airport handling worker was sentenced under the law for having written swastikas and "dirty Jews" on suitcases arriving from Tel Aviv.

The judgement was however suspended after the man lost his job.

Berlusconi's government, ousted in April elections, has fiercely denied any knowledge or connection to the matter.

Police arrested Italy's second-highest ranking military intelligence official, Marco Mancini, on Wednesday and placed another spy chief under house arrest for their possible role in the alleged kidnapping of Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar.

Prosecutors say a CIA-led team grabbed Nasr off a Milan street, bundled him into a van and later flew him to Egypt, where he is now being held without charges. Nasr says he was tortured under questioning there.

Beyond linking Italians to the kidnapping for the first time, a judge on Wednesday also raised to 26 the number of Americans -- most believed to be CIA agents -- who face arrest warrants over the Nasr case.

Prosecutors are expected to question Mancini on Friday. He denies any wrongdoing.

"We must get to the bottom of this to ascertain the truth given that it seems like there were secret agents that collaborated in carrying out a crime," D'Alema said in remarks carried by Italian media.

Any proof of Italian involvement would confirm charges by Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty made last month that European governments had colluded with Washington in secret prisoner transfers.

Nasr's lawyer told Reuters on Thursday that the cleric plans to sue Italy for 10 million euros ($12.7 million) for allegedly helping the CIA kidnap him in Milan.

Nasr had political refugee status in Italy at the time of the alleged abduction but faces arrest in Italy on suspicion of terrorist activity including recruiting militants for
Iraq.

But he rejected proposals to grant immigrants citizenship after only two years. "I think that's too short because many immigrants come to Italy to earn some money, then leave for home again," he said.

The minister's proposal prompted a sharp reaction from the Northern League, a minority party with a populist and xenophobic line.

"The Italians themselves will have to seek residence permits one day to ensure their rights," fumed the Northern League's Roberto Calderoli, a former minister for reform.

While it was part of the ruling right-wing coalition of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Northern League pushed through legislation making it harder for non-
European Union immigrants to obtain a residence permit.

At the end of last year there were some three million immigrants with proper residence qualifications in Italy and around 500,000 clandestine immigrants, according to the Roman Catholic Church charity organisation Caritas.

The new government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi has said it will grant legal status to the clandestine immigrants.

The more emollient approach towards immigrants shown by the Prodi contrasts with hardening attitudes elsewhere within the European Union.

France's interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, has introduced tough new legislation promoting selective immigration, setting tougher conditions for immigrants coming to France by favouring skilled workers and making it harder for migrants to reunite with their families.

The so-called Sarkozy law also scraps regulations that previously allowed illegal immigrants to obtain French documents after 10 years of living in the country. Now their cases will be dealt with on an individual basis by the authorities.

The aim is to streamline Germany's government system, partly by curtailing some of the powers devolved to the country's 16 states.

In future, for example, only 35 to 40 percent of draft laws will need the approval of both the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, which represents the regional states. At present the figure is 60 percent.

Only two states -- Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Schleswig-Holstein- voted against the bill in the Bundestag on Friday.

The federal model was imposed on Germany by the Allies after the war to prevent an abuse of centralised power, but it proved increasingly cumbersome after reunification in 1990.

The reform took years to hammer out because of a tug-of-war over how much sovereignty the states would retain in matters ranging from education to the prison system and shop opening hours.

In each of these fields, the federal government has agreed to relinquish some of its powers in exchange for the weakened influence of the Bundesrat and greater powers in setting policy on issues like combating terrorism.

The overhaul will be implemented in stages from now to the start of 2007.

It is the first major reform that Chancellor Angela Merkel's seven-month-old left-right coalition government has adopted.

It also this week presented the outlines of an overhaul of the health care system, a hard-won compromise which showed up divisions in the coalition.

Observers say the health care reform reflects how difficult it is for Merkel to effect real change at the head of a power-sharing government.