FRANCE: Australia nuclear plant plot trial opens in Paris.

A French Muslim convert suspected of plotting to attack an Australian nuclear power station protested his innocence on Wednesday (February 7) and said he had no faith in French justice. Prosecutors say Willy Brigitte and Sajid Mir, his co-accused who is being tried in absentia, considered targeting a nuclear research reactor on the outskirts of Sydney. Brigitte, 38, who faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of associating with criminals involved in terrorist activities, told the main Paris criminal court that French investigators had produced a biased case against him. Dressed in a black roll-neck jumper and tracksuit, Brigitte refused to answer questions on the case. The court heard how Australian police, arresting Brigitte for breaching immigration rules, had found in his pocket a printout of an Internet page on Australian nuclear and military facilities. He was promptly deported back to France. But defence lawyers said Brigitte had merely gone to Australia to rebuild his life -- not to plot attacks on Australian soil on the orders of Islamic militants. "What you have heard is a report based essentially on a prosecution case strewn with untruths, inaccuracies, approximations, and the duty and the work of the defence, because we will speak, will be to correct all that" said Brigitte's lawyer Jean-Claude Durimel. Durimel also added that when Brigitte left for Australia, he did not even know there a nuclear power station at Lucas Heights. Fellow defence counsel Harry Durimel said records from an Australian court case showed there "was no proof, no implication of Willy Brigitte in anything terrorist related at all" while in Australia. Australia's chief spy said Brigitte, born in the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe, had been "almost certainly involved" in activities aimed at harming the country. Australia has been targeted by militant Islamic groups because of its role alongside U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Brigitte said a proper investigation would have shown that "I am not a terrorist, that I never prepared, organised, or was involved in any terrorist activity whatsoever". Testimony from Brigitte's two former wives in France showed he embraced a radical form of Islam after converting in 1998 and his religious beliefs became increasingly more strident. He joined a group conducting military-style training in Fontainebleau Forest near Paris and later graduated to weapons and explosives training in camps on the Pakistan-Afghan border. Witness statements said Brigitte had expressed regret he was prevented from fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan when U.S. forces invaded after the Sept. 11, 2003 attacks. His lawyers said Brigitte had gone to Yemen, Chechnya, Kosovo and Pakistan to deepen his faith and carry out humanitarian work. "Is it a crime to learn your religion? Is it a crime to deepen your knowledge in your religion, is it a crime when you go on work humanitarian action because you don't say everything he did, but Brigitte went to Chechnya, to Bosnia, he went to do humanitarian action in his religion. If these people that he was learning from were only teaching weapon or fighting or killing that's not where he would have gone. He went there for the part he needed as he said to fulfil his religion and that's all," said Harry Durimel, Brigitte's lawyer. The trial resumes on Thursday (February 7).

ITN Source | February 8, 2007

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