The French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, praised the country's top anti-terrorism judge on Friday, despite the scaling down of a terrorism case against Iranian opposition figures in France.

Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere headed the investigation against the armed Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen, and ordered its leader, Maryam Rajavi and 10 others into jail for questioning.

They had been arrested in mid-June after one of the biggest operations by the domestic intelligence services in the last 30 years.

Bruguiere alleged the organisation was linked to "terrorism" and "terrorist financing".

But a court this week ordered all to be set free, setting bail only for Rajavi and one other suspect.

Sarkozy told reporters that Bruguiere's competence was "recognised the world over" and he praised France's counter-espionage DST service as "the most efficient in the world".

At the same time, he criticised Danielle Mitterrand, the widow of the former French president, for supporting the People's Mujahedeen.

Sarkozy said the crackdown on the organisation on June 17, carried out by 1,200 police officers, was undertaken without problems and without brutality.

The fact that several members of the People's Mujahedeen set fire to themselves, with one of them dying, raised questions about the "psychological balance" of the group's members, Sarkozy said.

With a program that combines left-wing and Islamic ideology, the People's Mujahedeen took part in the 1979 revolution in Iran.

But the movement was suppressed in the years that followed and its members fled abroad, many to Europe, where they created a headquarters in France.AFP