Nuclear Engineer From Cern Lab Arrested for al-Qaeda Links
October 9, 2009 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under World Report
From the UK’s Times Online – Fueling fears that al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations could be targeting the nuclear industry, French agents have arrested a researcher from Europe’s top atomic lab on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda.
The 32-year-old man, who was detained along with his brother, works for the prestigious European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Geneva, Switzerland, according to French police sources.
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The suspect is believed to have been in contact with members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an Algerian-based terrorist organisation which joined Osama bin Laden’s network in 2007.
A source said French intelligence officers had intercepted messages in which the man had suggested targets in France.
”He had expressed a wish or a desire to commit terrorist actions, but had not materially prepared them,” said the source.
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.
