"We spoke at first of a collective suicide," Andre Piller, a magistrate investigating the deaths, told a news conference in Fribourg.

But a magistrate investigating the murder cannot name a single culprit.

He also described, in a phone call, the magistrates investigating him about the corruption charges as "penniless, envious turds whose wives are probably cuckolding them while they keep track of me."

But Jean-Marie D'Huy, the French magistrate investigating the charges, contends that the company Mr. Suard headed did benefit.

But magistrates investigating illicit fund-raising were nevertheless interested enough on Friday to search the offices of the journalist who helped Mr. Mery make his tape.

The proposal today does not include Mr. Gordji, and French officials said he must still appear before the magistrate investigating the bombings.

Judge Dhia al-Kinani, the magistrate investigating the incident, said the court has opened a probe into al-Zaidi's alleged beating.

A magistrate investigating the assassination attempt of Mariano Rumor found that Bertoli's files were incomplete.

In a statement on Friday, Halliburton said company representatives had recently met with Reynaud van Ruymbeke, the French magistrate investigating the payments.

The first in line to question him are the magistrates investigating the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in 1982 and its ties to the Vatican bank.