Witness refuses to remove burka in Supreme Court

The judge explained that in Spanish courts it is obligatory to give evidence with one's face uncovered, so the woman was called to his chambers at the end of the session along with the prosecutor, Dolores Delgado, where they managed to convince the woman to return to court next Monday to give evidence with her face showing, albeit with her back to the public gallery.

"By looking at her face, I cam tell if she is lying or not, if she is surprised by a question or not," explained the judge, who added that he had no intention of holding her in contempt.

He pointed out that religious beliefs could not be above civil law.

Initially, the woman, sister of the suicide bomber, Hassan Hssisni, who carried out a terrorist attack on Iraq in January 2005, refused to reveal her face, saying that her religious beliefs prevented her from doing so.

After meeting with the judge in his chambers, the woman was clearly very pleased to be allowed to give evidence on Monday wearing a burka above her eyebrows and under her chin, with no cameras and no public, and said that the judge had been "very pleasant".

Both the woman and her husband Francisco have been called as witnesses in the trial against nine alleged members of two funamentalist cells in Madrid and Catalunya broken up by police in 2006, whose prime function was to recruit mujahideens in order to send them to Iraq to carry out suicide attacks.