UPDATE 3-Six bankers charged, five absent as UK begins first Euribor rigging case

* One woman and five men appear in court

* Four Germans, one Frenchman fail to attend the hearing

* Accused are former Deutsche Bank, Barclays and SocGenemployees (Adds SFO comment on formal request for court attendance,paragraph 10)

By Kirstin Ridley

LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Six bankers were formally chargedin a British court on Monday with conspiring to manipulateEuribor benchmark interest rates, while another five accused inthe case did not appear for the hearing.

The case involving 11 former Deutsche Bank,Barclays and Societe Generale employees isBritain's fourth prosecution of rate-fixing allegations since itjoined a global inquiry kick-started by U.S. regulators in 2008.

It is the first to cover allegations of manipulation ofEuribor, which ranks alongside the London Interbank OfferedRate, Libor, as a key benchmark used to set terms for $450trillion in securities worldwide.

Prosecutors told Westminster Magistrates' Court they hadlearned only on Monday that four Germans and a Frenchman wouldnot attend the preliminary hearing in the case. The case wasreferred to the higher-level Southwark Crown Court, where afirst hearing was scheduled for Wednesday.

A lawyer for Joerg Vogt, one of the five who did not attend,said her client was under no obligation to appear. A lawyer foranother, Ardalan Gharagozlou, declined to comment.

Lawyers for the other three "no-shows" - Andreas Hauschild,Kai-Uwe Kappauf and Stephane Esper - did not immediately respondto emails from Reuters seeking an explanation for why theirclients did not appear. All are Germans apart from Esper who isFrench.

Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale declined tocomment. A spokeswoman for SocGen said in an emailed statement:"The case relates to an individual who left the bank in 2009 andnot the bank itself. Due to the ongoing legal proceedings itwould be inappropriate to make any further comment."

Prosecutor James Waddington told the court the bankers whodid not attend had offered a variety of explanations for stayingaway, including ongoing investigations in Germany.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office said that the five, who wereforeigners located outside Britain, had a right not to appear inresponse to the summons, and had not been made subject to anyextradition request.

The six who did appear - Christian Bittar, ColinBermingham, Philippe Moryoussef, Sisse Bohart, Achim Kraemerand Carlo Palombo - were released on conditional bail.

Lawyers for Frenchman Bittar have said he would contest theallegations. Lawyers for Italian-British national Palombo havedeclined to comment. Representatives of Kraemer, a German,Moryoussef, who is French, Bermingham, who is British and Bohart, a Dane, did not respond to requests for comment.

Global investigations into the fixing of interest ratebenchmarks have so far culminated in banks and brokerages payingabout $9 billion in regulatory settlements, and more than 30individuals being charged.

Euribor rates, like the similar Libor benchmarks, arecompiled from estimates that banks give of their cost ofborrowing. The latest case, like previous investigations,focuses on accusations that bankers around the worlddeliberately manipulated the benchmarks for profit.

The accused include former middle managers, traders andEuribor rate submitters of six nationalities for the threebanks, resident in countries ranging from the United States toDenmark and Singapore.

Bittar, a Singapore-based star trader who was once one ofDeutsche Bank's most profitable money markets managers, is beingrepresented by Alexander Cameron, brother of the British PrimeMinister, David Cameron. His bail was set at 1 million pounds,while none of the others was ordered to pay more than 150,000.($1 = 0.6862 pounds) (Writing by Sinead Cruise, Editing by Peter Graff)