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U.S. Seeks to Use Canadian Wiretaps in Terror Case 

U.S. prosecutors urged a federal judge on Tuesday to allow them to use evidence gathered by Canadian intelligence agents in the trial of nine members of an alleged Hizbollah cell operating out of North Carolina.

The criminal trial, set to begin in April in a Charlotte, North Carolina, courtroom, has emerged as a test case for U.S. prosecutors as they seek to open a new front in the war on terrorism in federal court, attorneys on both sides said.

Defense attorneys, trying to block what prosecutors admitted was the linchpin of their anti-terror case, argued that a 117-page intelligence summary of wiretapped Arabic conversations was unreliable, in large part because the original tapes have been destroyed.

``We're hoping this will set good precedent for us,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Bell said of a ruling on the evidence, expected to be handed down in the coming weeks.

The case, which began as an investigation into cigarette smuggling, would be the first to come to trial under a 1996 law that makes it illegal to aid foreign groups designated by the U.S. government as terrorist organizations, prosecutors said.

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