| Europe |
| French arrest man suspected of financing al-Qaeda |
| 2012-07-04 |
[Dawn] French authorities have locked awayBook 'im, Mahmoud! the administrator of an turban French website who is suspected of playing a key role in financing and recruiting for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups from Pakistain to Spain, the Gay Paree prosecutor's office said Tuesday. The man, whom prosecutors call an "operational vector and formidable financier of the bloodiest terrorist groups'', is being questioned Tuesday. He faces preliminary charges of planning terrorist acts and financing a terrorist enterprise, the prosecutor's office said in a statement. The man, a Tunisian born in 1977 based in the southern French city of Toulon, was locked away Book 'im, Mahmoud! Friday after a yearlong investigation, the prosecutor's statement said. It did not give the man's name. The prosecutor cited "serious and concordant evidence" that the suspect sent material from his computer to terrorist groups. It says he played a "centralizing role" in collecting funds for terrorist groups to buy weapons, but did not elaborate on how much money was involved. Prosecutors say he is suspected of acting as a financier and recruiter for groups including al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (North Africa), Fatah al Islam, and the Islamic State of Iraq. Investigators studied thousands of email messages and analyzed a "considerable mass" of data, prosecutors said. They called it an exceptionally advanced example of "the use of the Internet for terrorist ends in the domain of radical Islam." The arrest comes three months after a gunman who police said claimed allegiance to al-Qaeda killed Jewish schoolchildren and paratroopers in a rampage in southern La Belle France, in La Belle France's worst terrorist attacks since the 1990s. Also earlier this year, a French court sentenced an Algerian-born nuclear physicist to five years in prison for his role in plotting terrorism with al-Qaeda's north African wing via online contacts. Adlene Hicheur, a former researcher at Switzerland's ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... CERN laboratory, was convicted of "criminal association with a view to plotting terrorist attacks." His defenders say he was a victim of allegedly overzealous French anti-terrorism laws and that he explored ideas on jihadist websites but never took any concrete step toward terrorism. |
| Link |
| Europe | ||
| Algerian-born physicist convicted of terrorism | ||
| 2012-05-04 | ||
Adlene Hicheur, a 35-year old Algerian-born former nuclear physicist with Switzerland's CERN laboratory, was sentenced to 5 years in prison on charges of plotting terrorist attacks in France.
While on trial, Mr. Hicheur confessed he wrote those email but denied he would have ever carried out any of those attacks.
Mr.Hicheur has been behind bars since 2009. | ||
| Link |
| Europe | |
| Paris: Scientist accused of plotting to blow up 'city size of London' | |
| 2012-04-01 | |
Alleged al-Qaeda agent Adlene Hicheur is accused of compiling a "hit list" of targets that included French president Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... and his former interior minister, Brice Hortefeux. The 35-year-old French-Algerian was tossed in the calaboose in a joint MI5 and French intelligence sting three years ago while researching the Big Bang theory at the CERN nuclear laboratory near Geneva. Officials said they intercepted e-mails he exchanged with al-Qaeda's North African branch, in which he plotted to blow up a Total oil refinery and a French military base. In one e-mail to suspected Islamic terror chief Mustapha Debchi, Hicheur said he would "propose possible objectives in Europe and particularly in La Belle France". He wrote in March 2009: "Concerning the matter of objectives, they differ depending on the different results sought after the hits. "For example: if it's about punishing the state because of its military activities in Moslem countries -- Afghanistan -- then it should be a purely military objective. For example: the airbase at Karan Jefrier near Annecy in La Belle France. This base trains troops and sends them to Afghanistan." In June 2009, Debchi asked Hicheur: "Don't beat around the bush: are you prepared to work in a unit becoming active in La Belle France?" Hicheur replied: "Concerning your proposal, the answer is of course YES but there are a few observations. If your proposal relates to a precise strategy -- such as working in the heart of the main enemy's house and emptying its blood of strength -- then I should revise the plan that I've prepared." French intelligence sources said money transfers had also taken place between the pair. One security source said at the time: "He [Hicheur] had offered his services to strike with an active service unit based in La Belle France. "He had started to compile a precise list of intended targets, including a Total oil refinery which would have caused an kaboom which would have destroyed a city the size of London. "Assassination targets including the president and interior minister were also on the list." Magistrates investigating the case said Hicheur's e-mails "crossed the line of simple debate of political or religious ideas to enter the sphere of terrorist violence". At CERN -- the European Organisation for Nuclear Research -- Hicheur worked on the large hadron collider, a device designed to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang. Hicheur's lawyer now fears his trial for "criminal association as part of a terrorist enterprise" could be jeopardised by the seven murders committed by in Toulouse by Mohamed Merah. Patrick Baudouin said: "There is not the least proof against Mr Hicheur of any terrorist intention. He has since the beginning been painted as the ideal guilty party. When the justice system gets going it finds it difficult to admit its mistakes." Hicheur, who denies the charge, faces ten years in prison if convicted. | |
| Link |
| Terror Networks | ||
| Pajamas Media: That CERN scientist's AQM friends have been busy | ||
| 2009-10-13 | ||
| Last week I was in Las Vegas attending a banquet honoring retired intelligence officers, many of whom once worked for the CIA. Some of the guests were still active. Others currently work for the Department of Defense. There were four of us from the press. I got to chatting in a three-way conversation with a former U-2 pilot and a current defense contractor who frequents the Pentagon (and therefore asked to remain anonymous). "What's going to happen if al-Qaeda gets their hands on WMD?" the pilot asked. "They already have," the defense contractor said. Then he told the story of how, just last January, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) had bungled a WMD experiment using bubonic plague. "None of you press wrote about that," the man said, eyeballing me.
"I was at the military briefing," he said. Then he added that the briefing was not classified and included several members of the press. The arrested nuclear scientist, a 32-year-old Algerian-born French man named Dr. Adlene Hicheur, was being described by France's Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence as a "very high-level" operative with AQIM. That's the same group who'd been experimenting with bubonic plague earlier in the year. Adlene Hicheur had attended Stanford University, in California, in 1999 and 2002.
| ||
| Link |
| Europe | |
| Fears arrested CERN scientist was planning nuclear attack on UK | |
| 2009-10-12 | |
| MI5 learn he worked at top-secret British lab, investigate brilliant scientist's links to world-famous Rutherford Appleton nuclear research centre Last night fears were growing that Dr Adlene Hicheur — who was a researcher for the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire for a year — could have been planning a nuclear attack in the UK. His brother Dr Halim Hicheur, 25, carries out research at similar high-security scientific institutions around Europe. The brothers' council flat was stormed at 6am last Thursday by eight masked officers from the elite Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (CDII), the French equivalent of MI5, and 20 armed riot officers. A battering ram was used to break the lock and the warning 'Armed police!' shouted. Large-calibre machine pistols and other weapons were aimed at those inside the flat, including the brothers' parents and sisters. The family has had the same flat for 30 years.
Mr Hortefeux said the apparently mild-mannered, highly religious brothers were a 'high-level threat' who were suspected of 'criminal activities related to a terrorist group'. Last night, MI5 was understood to be examining their British links amid fears that they were plotting to launch a nuclear attack in the UK. A spokesman for the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory refused to release details about Adlene Hicheur's time there. Fears were growing that the men may have been in a position to smuggle nuclear material out of a secure lab for use in a 'dirty bomb' attack, or to plant explosives inside the sensitive facility. According to European intelligence sources, MI5 had been warned that the suspects 'are outstanding scientists who had been honing their techniques in nuclear fusion across the world. 'There are genuine fears that they were locating terrorist targets, especially in countries like France and Britain. Their level of expertise in nuclear fusion was improving all the time, leading to the terrifying scenario of a terrorist nuclear attack.' The arrests followed surveillance that had logged the French-Algerians' 'every word and every move', including frequent visits to England. The police will want to question anyone who has worked with or studied alongside either man at Britain's scientific research centres or universities. The brothers first came to the attention of French anti-terrorist officers when their names cropped up in an investigation trying to identify French jihadists fighting Nato forces in Afghanistan. The decision to arrest them followed the interception of internet exchanges with people identified as having links to terrorists in Algeria. The messages reportedly included information on potential targets in France and elsewhere in Europe. The brothers' British links included Adlene's work for the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, as well as research at university cities including London, Manchester, Durham, Edinburgh and St Andrews. They had also spent time studying at Ivy League universities in the US. European intelligence sources said that Adlene Hicheur, who studied at Stanford University in California before moving to Oxfordshire, had expressed a 'very strong wish to carry out attacks anywhere where Western security interests can be damaged'. This included 'countries like Britain and any others where Americans are well represented', the source added, making it clear that neither brother had yet 'carried out an attack nor put the material into place to do so'. The Mail on Sunday has learned that Adlene Hicheur used to work at another atomic collider — the two-mile long Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) at Stanford University in 2001. | |
| Link |