Belgium To Hold Al Qaeda Suspects Until Jan 7.

The lawyers have to examine 32 cartons containing tens of thousands of pages of documents surrounding the suspects.

Six al Qaeda suspects arrested in Belgium last week will be held in custody until Jan. 7, giving their lawyers time to review the extensive files on the case, the federal prosecutor's office said on Wednesday.

The lawyers have to examine 32 cartons containing tens of thousands of pages of documents surrounding the suspects, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said.

Belgium detained 14 people suspected of links with al Qaeda last Thursday as European Union heads of state were set to meet for a summit, including one suspect who may have been planning a suicide attack Eight people were later released.

Prosecutors said at the time that their investigation concerned people who had travelled to Afghanistan or Pakistan to take part in fighting or training.

The next day a court ordered that six of them should stay in custody, including Malika El Aroud, the widow of one of the two men who assassinated anti-Taliban Afghan rebel leader Ahmad Shah Masood two days before the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.