BEIRUT, Lebanon - One of three people arrested in Lebanon suspected of plotting bomb attacks against trains in Germany in July was questioned in Beirut Saturday in the presence of a German prosecutor, legal sources said.

Beirut examining magistrate Abdel Rahim Hamud questioned Jihad Hamad with the German judge present following a request by the German authorities, they said.

Lebanon's general prosecutor Said Mirza has opposed transferring Lebanese suspects to Germany. State law states that only Lebanese judges can undertake interrogations on Lebanese territory.

They are "Lebanese citizens, their trial needs to take place here and they must serve here any sentence they may be given," he said.

Hamad and two other suspects were charged on September 2 with attempted murder and arson.

A fourth Lebanese and a Syrian citizen are in detention in Germany in connection with the case. If convicted, they face terms of up to 25 years in prison.

German federal police said the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in Western and some Arab media had been the "detonator" which pushed the alleged terrorists to organise a plot to bomb German trains on July 31.

The plan failed when bombs hidden on two regional trains did not explode because of faulty detonators.

One suspect, Yusef Mohammed al-Hajj Dib, who was arrested in Germany on August 16, "interpreted (the caricatures) as an affront to Islam by the Western world," federal police chief Jorg Ziercke told the German Focus Online magazine in an interview published on Monday.

He and Hamad, who was arrested on August 24 in Lebanon, are the two main suspects. Ziercke said they were influenced by the late Al-Qaeda in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The German newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung has reported that the investigation found that the suspected terrorists initially wanted to strike during the World Cup football championship from June 9 to July 9.

They changed their minds because of the risks and repercussions their act could have triggered, the newspaper alleged.

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