Brussels — Three Belgian companies are facing prosecution for allegedly exporting a chemical that can be used to make the deadly nerve agent sarin to Syria, in breach of international sanctions, officials said Wednesday.

Belgian customs agents have brought a case against the firms -- a chemicals company, a transporter and an intermediary -- who are suspected of exporting isopropanol to Syria and Lebanon without declaring it, a spokeswoman for the finance ministry told AFP.

Isopropanol is subject to strict export controls when it is concentrated to 95 percent or more because it can be used to make chemical weapons, including sarin -- which the United Nations and the West say the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has used on its own people.

Isopropanol also has more innocent uses as a paint solvent and cleaning fluid.

Finance ministry spokeswoman Florence Angelici said a case had been brought for making a false customs declaration, as the companies had not listed isopropanol on the shipping documents.

A court in the port city of Antwerp will start hearing the case on May 15.

UN security team came under fire in Douma

A UN security team was fired at on Tuesday while on a reconnaissance mission in the Syrian town of Douma ahead of the deployment of experts investigating an alleged chemical attack, a UN official said.

“Shots were fired yesterday at a UN security team doing a reconnaissance in Douma,” the official told AFP.

“They were not injured and returned to Damascus.”

The UN security team entered Douma to assess the situation ahead of the planned visit by inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said the sources, who had been briefed on the team’s deployment.

The OPCW inspectors are in Syria to investigate an April 7 incident in which Western countries and rescue workers say scores of civilians were gassed to death by government forces, which Damascus denies.

The United States, Britain and France fired missiles at three Syrian targets on Saturday to punish President Bashar Al-Assad for the suspected chemical attack, the first coordinated Western action against Assad in seven years of war.

A delay in the arrival of the inspectors at the Douma site has become a source of diplomatic dispute, because Western countries accuse Damascus and Moscow of hindering the mission. The United States and France have both said they believe the delay could be used to destroy evidence of the poison attack.

Douma was the last town to hold out in the besieged Eastern Ghouta enclave, the last big rebel bastion near the capital Damascus, which was captured by a government advance over the past two months. The last rebels abandoned the town on Saturday, hours after the U.S.-led missile strikes, leaving government forces in control of the site of the suspected chemical attack. — Agencies