Australia - Brigitte quizzed wife on Pine Gap (Al-Queda sought info on U.S. listening post)

The Australian ^ | February 5, 2004 | Trudy Harris

[HAL9000]

SUSPECTED French terrorist Willie Brigitte tried to get information from his wife, former soldier Melanie Brown about the top-secret spy facility at Pine Gap, French police sources say.

During her four days of interrogation by French officials in Paris last month, police said Ms Brown recalled incidents with Brigitte in Sydney that, on reflection, seemed suspicious to her.

In particular, Ms Brown is understood to have told French interrogators that Brigitte questioned her at length about the US-Australian electronic intelligence station at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs.

He asked her if she had ever been inside the base when she was in the Australian Army Signal Corps, whose members are experts in communication intercepts.

While in the army, Ms Brown was reportedly training in Arabic and performed a tour of duty in East Timor. Before joining up, she had been a corporal in the Air Training Corps.

Brigitte asked her about the transmission systems and the low-frequency electronic transmitting antennae the US had reportedly installed in Pine Gap.

French police sources said Ms Brown, 27, insisted she had not revealed any military secrets to Brigitte.

A convert to Islam, Ms Brown said last week she had decided to end her marriage to Brigitte, who was deported from Australia to a Paris prison late last year.

But in an apparent change of heart on Tuesday, Ms Brown told reporters as she visited Brigitte in prison that she loved and supported him.

She said Brigitte, suspected of having links to al-Qa'ida, was innocent.

Her lawyer, Stephen Hopper, said yesterday that Ms Brown had been on an emotional rollercoaster since her arrival in Paris last month. She was now planning to remain in her relationship with Brigitte. French police sources say that by the end of her interrogation by French counter-espionage officers, Ms Brown felt Brigitte had lied to her and might have been a terrorist.

Sources said Ms Brown told the investigators Brigitte never threw anything out, but often burnt personal papers or handwritten documents in the kitchen sink.

One day, he burnt his passport, which contained his Pakistani visa. When Ms Brown asked him why he was doing this, he told her it was none of her business.

Almost every morning, Brigitte was visited by the same man, and they sat together for long periods in front of a computer connected to the internet. Ms Brown never saw the visitor's face, but she knew him because she recognised his particular way of knocking at the door.

Brigitte seemed interested in Ms Brown's money. French police said she had accumulated relatively sizeable savings, especially after her missions in East Timor, and Brigitte strongly encouraged his wife to write her will. Some of the more speculative French investigators have hypothesised that Brigitte might have intended to persuade his wife to carry out a suicide attack on a US military facility. The sources said that Ms Brown had stated Brigitte never told her he had already been married twice. Ms Brown told the police that was not important.

But what really disappointed her was that Brigitte had not revealed he had children with his previous wives, the sources said.

That was far more important in Ms Brown's eyes, because she believes a good Muslim has responsibilities and duties to his children.

Unless she changes her mind, Ms Brown was expected to leave Paris for Australia by the end of this week.

[GeronL]

we need to declare war on France.