Brigitte planned Australian terror attack, associate claims

French terror suspect Willie Brigitte spoke of plotting a terror attack in Australia before he was arrested and sent back to France, a suspected French Islamic militant has told investigators.

Willie Virgile Brigitte was deported to France in October. In a subsequent operation this week in France, police tracked down one of his acquaintances, Ibrahim Keita, who is accused of providing logistical support to Islamic militants.

Keita, a 37-year-old French convert to Islam, was placed under investigation - a step short of formal charges - for suspected links to terrorist groups, judicial officials said yesterday, on condition of anonymity.

Under questioning by the national counterintelligence agency, Keita said that Brigitte told him by telephone of a terror plot, the officials said. Its details were not specified.

Keita provided lodgings for Brigitte in 1997 and 1998, the officials said. After that, the two men stayed in touch.

Brigitte's lawyer denies he was involved in a plot to blow up the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney.

Brigitte has never admitted to a role in a terror plot, lawyer Philippe Valant said.

Both Brigitte and Keita are being investigated as part of an inquiry into the September 2001 killing of anti-Taliban military commander Ahmed Shah Massood in Afghanistan.

Brigitte, also under investigation for terrorist links, is suspected of running false passports to Massood's assassins.

Officials also believe he organised survival training lessons in the forest of Fontainebleau outside Paris in the late 1990s.

Originally from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, 35-year-old Brigitte has spent months in al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials say.

Keita testified yesterday that he participated in the training sessions in Fontainebleau, officials said.

He has never been to Afghanistan or Pakistan, though he is suspected of recruiting young French Islamic militants to send there.

More details from the same source:

French stymie jail access to Brigitte

By Darren Goodsir

November 22, 2003

Australian investigators did not gain access to the imprisoned terrorist suspect Willie Brigitte during nearly two weeks in Paris trying to unravel his alleged al-Qaeda connections.

However, the Australian Federal Police - who observed two ASIO interviews with the Frenchman in Australia before he was deported - were able to establish a document and intelligence sharing protocol with France's terrorism judge, Jean-Louis Brugiere.

The AFP officers, who returned to Australia on Thursday, will regularly visit Paris over the next few months as authorities seek more on Brigitte's contacts and intended activities.

A source close to the case said that although an interview with Brigitte was not conducted, negotiations with the French were fruitful and a consensus was reached on a number of investigative approaches.

There was also discussion on what offshore inquiries should be made to best disclose the extent of Brigitte's network, given his reported links with senior al-Qaeda operatives.

Brigitte was interrogated several times in Fleury-Merogis prison while the AFP were in France, but the sessions were strictly private.

On one occasion, his lawyer, Philippe Valent, was allowed to witness the questioning.

In the interview, Brigitte pleaded with Judge Brugiere to see his wife, the former Australian military signals officer Melanie Brown, but his request was rejected on security grounds.

His next official hearing with the judge is scheduled for next month and until then he will remain in solitary confinement.

Mr Valent has argued Brigitte - who he claims was duped by associates into visiting Australia to await the arrival of a professed bomb expert - has co-operated fully with his captors. In Australia, according to ASIO, which quizzed Brigitte while he was detained in Villawood immigration detention centre, he was largely unhelpful.

Although much about Brigitte and the reason for his detention on October 9 is unclear, details have emerged on why French authorities alerted ASIO about their fears that a terrorist incident might occur.

Brigitte has links with two French prisoners detained in June over the fatal bombing of a synagogue in Djerba, a Tunisian tourist island, in April last year. Last week, in the most recent al-Qaeda missive - in which more car bomb attacks were predicted - specific mention was made of Djerba.

The prisoners, Christian Ganczarski and Karim Mehdi, were arrested at Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport within days of each other. Investigators had phone records to show the synagogue suicide bomber, Nazar Niwar, called Ganczarski, a German national, moments before detonating a truck laden with gas cannisters, and killing 21 people.

Also beforehand, Niwar called Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 aircraft hijackings.

When Mehdi was arrested he said he was on the way, on Ganczarski's instructions, to the French island of Reunion to survey possible targets for a Bali-style nightclub attack.

German officials who searched Ganczarski's home said they found phone numbers and lists linking him to senior al-Qaeda figures. France's Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said Ganczarski had met Osama bin Laden.

It is in this context that concern about Brigitte has intensified since his arrest.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/21/1069027327251.html

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.