NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AFP) A Mauritanian court sentenced three Al-Qaeda members to death yesterday for the 2007 murder of four French tourists, who responded with threats against France and its president.

Mohamed Ould Chabarnou, 29, Maarouf Ould Haiba, 28, and Sidi Ould Sidna, 22, had pleaded not guilty to the murders which shocked the visitor-friendly nation but presented themselves as "soldiers of Al-Qaeda".

"The court has decided to sentence to death Mohamed Ould Chabarnou, Maarouf Ould Haiba and Sidi Ould Sidna," court president Ould Khaya said in Arabic as he read out the sentence.

Cries of "Allah Akbar" (God is great) rang out in the courtroom as the three shouted threats against French nationals and President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"Our death sentence means the death sentence of all the French in Mauritania and even beyond, to Afghanistan," Sidna shouted in Arabic.

"Between us and Sarkozy of France, this is the sword," Chabarnou said, in an apparent reference to the sentence.

Haiba made a veiled threat about the fate of 78-year-old Frenchman Michel Germaneau kidnapped in Niger on April 19.

"The French hostage kidnapped in Niger... will of course need freedom, and air to breathe," he said.

The three men were accused of shooting five French tourists on December 24, 2007 near the city of Aleg in southern Mauritania.

Only one man survived the cold-*lo**ed attack, a man in his seventies who lost two of his sons, his brother and a friend of the family.

The accused acknowledged during the trial that they had been "trained in camps" of Al-Qaeda, but denied they killed the tourists.