French CERN nuke expert jailed for terror plot
So much for the well worn misconception that Islamic attacks on the West are due to poverty and lack of education in the Muslim street. Here we have a Muslim Franco-Algerian of advanced education working in Europe at CERN and enjoying all the benefits of a free society yet chose to join al Qaeda in a plan terror attacks on France.
While most Muslims are not actively working to implement terror attacks, the problem is that it is impossible to sort out those from those waging Jihad against the West.
FROM THELOCAL.FR:
French CERN nuke expert jailed for terror plot
Published: 04 May 2012 15:11 GMT+1
A Franco-Algerian nuclear physicist was sentenced Friday to five years in jail – with one year suspended – for plotting terror attacks in France.
Police arrested Adlene Hicheur, a 35-year-old researcher studying the universe's birth – the Big Bang – at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in October 2009 after intercepting his emails.
His father embraced him in the Paris court room before he was taken away to serve his term in prison. Hicheur has already spent two and a half years in jail while awaiting trial.
Hicheur admitted at the start of his trial in late March that he was going through a "turbulent" time when he wrote the mails but denied he intended to carry out attacks.
The trial of Hicheur, who was charged with criminal association as part of a terrorist enterprise, began a week after police shot dead Franco-Algerian Mohamed Merah for killing seven people in and around the city of Toulouse.
Prosecutors focused on emails between Hicheur and an alleged Al-Qaeda contact.
Hicheur told the court the emails were written while his "physical and psychological state" was impaired while he was on sick leave for a slipped disc.
Following Hicheur's arrest at his parents' home near CERN, the research institute which lies on the Franco-Swiss border northwest of Geneva, police discovered a trove of Al-Qaeda and Islamist militant literature.
France's DCRI domestic intelligence agency's suspicions were raised after a statement from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was sent to President Nicolas Sarkozy's Elysee Palace in early 2008.
Following the message police carried out surveillance on several email accounts including Hicheur's and his exchanges with Mustapha Debchi, an alleged AQIM representative living in Algeria.
In the emails Hicheur suggested "possible objectives in Europe and particularly in France", mentioning for example a French military base at Cran-Gevrier, close to CERN.
Asked by Debchi if he was "prepared to work in a unit becoming active in France," Hicheur replied: "The answer is of course YES".
Magistrates investigating the case said the exchanges "crossed the line of simple debate of political or religious ideas to enter the sphere of terrorist violence."
They say the accused "knowingly agreed with Mustapha Debchi to set up an operational cell ready to carry out terrorist acts in Europe and in France."