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The mother of all IEDs
A physicist at the lab that houses the Swiss Large Hadron Collider, built to replicate the conditions of the 'Big Bang', has been arrested on suspicion of terror links. The European Nuclear Physics Organization (Cern) says the man, whom it did not identify, was arrested yesterday by French police. The arrested man had been working on an experiment in particle physics as a contractor since 2003, Cern said. It described the experiment as exploring what happened after the Big Bang that allowed matter to survive.The 32-year-old man was the elder of two brothers arrested in the French town of Vienne yesterday. Le Figaro newspaper reported earlier that the man had been in contact with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and had suggested several French targets for militant attacks. A judicial source confirmed that one of the brothers had been in contact with people close to the organisation but said there was no indication of a clearly established plot at this stage. The prosecutor's office in the Isere region said the case has been transferred to the anti-terrorist section of the Paris prosecutor's office.
The suspect had been under surveillance for about 18 months after he was identified during an investigation into a French network which sent Islamic radicals to Afghanistan. Judge Christophe Teissier, an investigating magistrate specialising in the fight against terrorism, opened a formal inquiry last month into his activities. The man was arrested on suspicion of involvement in a criminal association linked to a terrorist undertaking by the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (DCRI) at his home in Vienne, eastern France. His 25-year-old brother was also arrested as police seized two computers, three hard discs and two USB keys at their home. Both men were taken for questioning at the DCRI headquarters in Levallois-Perret outside Paris. Cern said the suspect had "never been in contact with any elements which could be used for terrorist purposes." Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-10-09 |
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