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I'm glad you found it of value. Hve you seen this? Someone I know just e-mailed it to me.

P A R I S, Oct. 21 - France has alerted Interpol about a French army deserter who is known as a marksman and is missing in North America. A Defense Ministry spokesman said there was speculation of a link to the investigation into the Washington-area sniper.

The 25-year-old second lieutenant, who was not identified, did not return to class in September at the elite military school, Saint-Cyr Coetquidan in Brittany, in western France, after going on vacation in August, officials said.

Interpol was notified of the disappearance of the officer, a normal procedure, and a judicial investigation was opened, which is also routine, said Defense Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau.

Bureau acknowledged there was some speculation of a connection with the sniper investigation, but he said that was just hypothetical at this point.

"We have no certitude of a link," he said in a telephone interview. However, he said, "This soldier has a very, very good reputation as a marksman."

And since the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, "these are things we follow very closely," he added.

Interpol, the international police agency based in the French city of Lyon, said it refuses to comment on active cases.

The deserter was given permission for an August trip to the United States and Canada, said Bureau. Police sources said he had planned a trip to Chicago.

RTL radio reported the deserter was of Yugoslav origin, but Bureau could not confirm that, saying that he had to be a French citizen to attend the military school.

After the missing officer never showed up for school in September, the gendarmerie, a force under the Defense Ministry, sent a note last week to the Interior Ministry. Interpol was then contacted, said Bureau.

I had read similar reports, but this article added materially to what I had previously read by specifically raising a question about whether the individual is of Yugoslav origin. Of course the Serbs are well-known to be overwhelmingly (85%) unfavourably disposed to U.S. government policies in the Balkans, but French citizens of Algerian extraction are, I should guess, even more unfavourably disposed to U.S. policies in the Arab world. If the so-called D.C. area sniper is a foreign national with political grievances against the U.S., or a naturalized U.S. citizen of foreign birth, he/she has surely been successful in leading most to think otherwise even though, as Mark Steyn pointed out, some of his/her exposition (using the word 'policeman') points in the other direction. What surprises me most is the decision by law enforcement to keep the handwriting specimen on the Tarot card, and possibly the syntax, exposition and handwriting on other notes, away from the public. This sort of evidence, in the hands of another U.S. citizen, might nail him/her, as it did the Unabomber. Perhaps this argues in favour of the notion that law enforcement is convinced, from their communications, verbal or written (presuming there have been any), that this is not someone who would be known to any another U.S. citizen, even though law enforcement has seemed to treat him/her otherwise by not discouraging the media from the general thrust to characterize him/her as someone who is a kindred spirit of 'Son of Sam' who, of all people, has written an open letter to the D.C. sniper, asking him to cease and desist. Thanks again for the information.