Terror suspect linked to Afghan assassination(, Ahmed Shah Massood.)

A Frenchman under investigation in Australia and France for possible terrorist activities was also suspected of links to the assassination of an Afghan leader, authorities said.

Willie Virgile Brigitte, 35, is in custody in a Paris area jail where he is being held on suspicion of association with a terror group, French police and justice officials said.

Investigations are under way in France and Australia into Brigitte's alleged links to the al-Qaeda terror network, French officials said today.

A judicial official said that Brigitte was also suspected of running false passports to the assassins of former anti-Taliban rebel leader in Afghanistan, Ahmed Shah Massood.

He was known as the "camper's chief" because he organised survival training lessons in Fontainebleau Gardens outside Paris before the September 11 attacks, the official said.

Brigitte, who allegedly fought with anti-US forces in Afghanistan, was captured on October 9 in Sydney after France warned Australia of his suspected al-Qaeda ties. He was returned to France under guard on October 17 and placed under investigation afterward.

NSW Premier Bob Carr said Brigitte's arrest may have disrupted a terror cell in Australia. Authorities have raided several homes in Sydney and interviewed people who may have known him.

"This was a serious character whose presence here was worrying. He came out of training in terrorist training camps," said Carr.

"It's likely that they (authorities) are breaking up now some cell that has existed in Sydney."

Carr said contacts Brigitte had made and training he had received in Pakistan and Afghanistan "confirmed that he learned about explosives."

Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock told reporters that French authorities had indicated Brigitte had been asked "to provide shelter to an expert in explosives," without elaborating.

French investigators haven't accused Brigitte of a terrorist plot or linked him to any attacks, but said he had spent months in al-Qaeda training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Brigitte arrived in Australia in May. The Australian government has defended itself against claims that it acted slowly by insisting the French only alerted them to his possible presence on September 22.

French authorities contacted Australia again on October 7, warning that Brigitte may have been there for terror-related activity.

Brigitte is originally from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe and had taken the Muslim name Abdelrahman.

Under questioning, Brigitte acknowledged he had travelled to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban against US forces after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, French officials said.

France's counterintelligence service, the DST, has been tracking Brigitte for years, officials said.

Yet another update from tomorrow's The Age

Deportee tie to assassination
By Peter Fray
Paris
Mark Forbes
Canberra
October 29, 2003

The deported Frenchman at the centre of a suspected Australian-based terrorist cell has been linked to the assassination of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban leader two years ago and alleged terrorist training camps near Paris.

Australian intelligence agencies are being updated on the results of Willie Virgile Brigitte's interrogation in Paris, and a spokesman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the allegations were of concern.

Mr Ruddock has also rejected pleas from an alleged associate of Brigitte to have his passport returned so he could leave Australia.

French judicial sources confirmed to the Reuters news agency that Brigitte had been told to shelter an al-Qaeda bomb maker in Australia, but that he told interrogators the man had not yet arrived. The explosives expert was to help in a "campaign".

French authorities are investigating Brigitte's role in the murder of the leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was killed by two men posing as documentary filmmakers two days before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Justice and Police Ministry sources in Paris have reportedly linked Brigitte to the supply of two stolen Belgian passports that assassins Karim Touzani and Kacem Bakkali used to gain access to the northern Afghanistan stronghold of Massoud's northern Afghanistan stronghold.

Brigitte, 35, who was deported from Australia to France 12 days ago, has also been suspected of operating survival training camps for al-Qaeda sympathisers in the Fontainebleau forest, near Paris, according to reports in the French media.

Massoud, a pro-Western opponent of the Taliban known as the "Lion of Panjshir", was killed when one of the pseudo documentary makers activated a huge bomb. Both killers died in the blast.

A TV camera believed to have contained the bomb is known to have been stolen from a French camera operator in Grenoble on Christmas Eve 2000.

Massoud's murder was a severe setback to moves to oust the fundamentalist Islamic regime that harboured al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.

In Canberra, Mr Ruddock said it was too early to claim that Australian authorities had prevented a terrorist attack. "We are undertaking further inquiries - and to claim victory, I think, may be somewhat premature."

On Monday, NSW Premier Bob Carr said six weekend raids in Sydney had probably broken up a terrorist cell and foiled an attack.

Mr Ruddock's spokesman rejected a call for passports seized or cancelled during the raids to be returned. "Passports are cancelled to restrict people's ability to leave the country and to keep them available for further questioning."

Stephen Hopper, lawyer for a man whose home was raided, has lodged a complaint with the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. "Our client has instructed us that he would like his passport returned immediately as he and his family wish to leave Australia as they are quite disillusioned after the experience of the raids," the complaint said.

Mr Hopper said his client was not one of the two men who had their passports cancelled after the ASIO and police raids. He said his client had never met Brigitte and had no knowledge of his time in Australia.

He said authorities searched his client's house for three hours and confiscated video cassettes, documents, passports, computer disks, audio tapes and CDs.

Mr Hopper also accused Mr Carr of fear-mongering. "If what Bob Carr was saying is true - that they've smashed an al-Qaeda cell - this gentleman would be under arrest and so would a number of the people who were subject to this raid."

Brigitte, who originally came from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, was secretly deported less than two weeks ago. He is being held in a prison near Paris under tough anti-terrorism laws administered by high-profile judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere. A former teacher and a convert to Islam, Brigitte is believed to have been questioned by France's counter-terrorism directorate, the DST, for at least four days last week.

He is believed to have been recruited to al-Qaeda while living in the Paris suburbs before being sent to Afghanistan and then Pakistan to work with terrorist groups.

He entered Australia in May this year and came to the attention of Australian authorities after a warning from the French in late September. He was detained in Sydney on October 9 and deported on October 17.

NSW police have classified Brigitte's threat to Australia as serious. In Paris, neither Judge Bruguiere nor the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for counter-terrorist activity in France, would comment.

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/28/1067233172665.html

As I've said elsewhere the French intelligent professionals are a lot more trustworthy than France's political leaders.

Be assured, this guy is "parle-ing beaucoup".

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