A French prosecutor requested on Friday a 10-year jail sentence for French Muslim convert Willie Brigitte from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, for allegedly conspiring with Pakistani extremists to plot terrorist attacks in Australia. Lawyers for 38-year-old Brigitte called for his acquittal, saying the prosecution's case was riddled with inaccuracies and would not have stood up in an Australian court.Deported from Australia in 2003 following a tip-off from the French authorities, Brigitte is charged with "criminal conspiracy in relation with a terrorist enterprise", which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. The verdict is due on March 15. "Willie Brigitte played an important role in a cell that was preparing an attack in Australia," said state prosecutor Vanessa Perree. "There is no reason that someone implicated in this type of project should be allowed to take part in French society -- although I doubt he wants to."
Perree ruled out any possibility of parole for the first seven years but Brigitte's three years spent in French custody would be taken into account, meaning he could be released from 2010. Brigitte protested his innocence on Monday, saying terrorism went against the teachings of Islam, but refused to speak for the rest of the three-day trial, saying he "has lost all hope of being understood"
He converted to Islam in 1998 and is alleged to have drifted quickly into radicalism, running paramilitary training camps in France to toughen up Islamist fighters, and undergoing weapons training in Pakistan. In May 2003 he is accused of travelling to Australia on the orders of Pakistani extremist group Lashkar e-Taiba to carry out an attack, whose planned targets are thought to have included a Sydney nuclear plant, the city's power grid or military installations around the country.
The court heard evidence of a web of connections linking Brigitte to Lashkar e-Taiba operatives in Australia, Britain and the United States. Key to the prosecution's case is a flurry of phone calls between Brigitte and top Lashkar e-Taiba operatives in Britain and Pakistan in the days before he left for Australia, and British intelligence findings indicating the group paid for his trip. Once in Australia, Brigitte is accused of joining a cell led by a Pakistani-born radical, Faheem Khalid Lodhi, who was jailed for 20 years in 2006 over the alleged terror plot. "It was Willie Brigitte's arrival that activated the cell," the prosecutor said.
According to French intelligence, Lodhi started purchasing ingredients for explosives and gathering maps and images of sensitive military sites only after Brigitte's arrival. But Brigitte's lawyer Jean-Claude Durimel said the prosecution had twisted the chronology of events, pointing out that one batch of explosives had been bought after Brigitte's arrest in Australia. He also rejected the material elements against Brigitte -- a leaflet with images of nuclear installations, and scribbled notes on how to stay concealed in public places -- as weak, saying the same evidence had been dismissed in the Australian trial of his alleged accomplice, Lodhi. "If Willie Brigitte is supposed to have prepared a terrorist attack in Australia, why didn't the Australians keep him in their country to try him? An attack requires a target -- we have been given a hypothetical list including everything from the Sydney Opera house to military bases or the 2003 Rugby World Cup. After three and half years in detention, Willie Brigitte still doesn't know the target of the attack he is accused of plotting," Durimel charged.
The defence also argued that Brigitte's initial statement to French police -- saying he knew Lodhi was planning an attack but denying further involvement -- should be discounted by the judges. Brigitte later retracted his statements, saying they had been obtained under pressure, and repeated the allegation in a letter read out in court. Durimel also read a letter by Brigitte's Australian wife, a Muslim convert and former army signaller named Melanie Brown, saying she was pressured into making incriminating statements against him. She had described him to police as shifty, saying he interrogated her about her work in military encryption, and that she suspected he was involved in illegal activities. In the letter Brown said she was threatened with detention by French police when she tried to visit Brigitte in jail and had "told them what they wanted to hear".