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| Europe |
| Paris airport arrest might actually be a frameup... |
| 2002-12-31 |
| A former soldier who alerted police to a bomb and weapons cache at Paris' biggest international airport has himself been taken into custody. The man raised the alarm when he said he saw a weapon in the car of an airport baggage handler at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. That's interesting... My sordid meter twitched... The baggage handler, Abderazak Besseghir, was arrested when he returned to the car. Police found plastic explosives, detonators, a fuse, a machine gun and an automatic pistol in the boot. Mr Besseghir, a 27-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin, is not known to have any links to extremist groups, although correspondents say the possibility of a terrorist connection with Islamic militants will be closely examined. He has told police that someone else must have put the arms cache in the vehicle, to frame him, as he had never seen the guns and explosives before. "I been framed, coppers! Framed! I dint do it, I swear! Tell 'em, Muggsy!" One report said radical Islamic and pro-Palestinian material was also found in the car, along with information about pilots' uniforms. Police say the bomb components found in the car were ready to use, but have been puzzled as to exactly what they might have been used for. "He certainly wasn't going Whoever the stuff belongs to wasn't... French media reports say his wife's family blame him for her death in a fire, and he believes he has been the victim of a plot to frame him. Inspector Camembert, call your office... Paris police have made several arrests in the past two weeks of suspected Islamic militants. The authorities say some were planning an attack on the Russian embassy in the city. Police said before Christmas that they had found bomb-making equipment during raids in the Paris suburbs. In total, nine arrests have been made since 16 December. All those arrested are said to be of Algerian or Moroccan origin. The arrests stem from an investigation into possible connections between Islamic militants in Europe and Chechnya. "Lookee here, Mahmoud. As long as they're rounding up them bad guys, we should set up Abderazak." "He ain't no bad guy, Abdul." "Yeah, well, he still deserves to go down for the way he treated poor Fatimah." "Yeah, damn him! Y'got any explosives?" "Ummm... Yeah. I think they're here... In my underwear drawer... No, that's where I keep my passports..." |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |