Free Republic

SNIPPET: "AUSTRALIA'S most notorious terrorist Willie Brigitte will be free from jail next year having served less than half his sentence for conspiring to blow up the nation's only nuclear reactor and the power grid. The Caribbean-born Muslim convert made headlines in 2007 when he was sentenced in France to a maximum nine years, following his arrest in Sydney, for joining an al-Qaida-backed Pakistani terror cell out to bomb Lucas Heights nuclear plant, the national electricity grid or a military base. The French Justice Ministry is considering releasing the 41-year-old, on an early-release good-behaviour plan."

PARIS, Nov 19, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Counter-terrorism agents this week arrested a man suspected of links to the assassins of anti-Taliban military commander Ahmed Shah Massood, France's interior minister said Wednesday. The suspect, not identified by name, was arrested Monday, Nicolas Sarkozy told lawmakers during a question and answer session. Sarkozy said the suspect "was in liaison with the assassins of Commander Massood," the western-backed head of the northern alliance opposed to the Taliban. Massood was slain on Sept. 9, 2001 in northern Afghanistan, two days before the terror attacks in the United States, by two men...

THE arrest of a Sydney student on terrorism training charges has intensified the police focus on four Sydney men allegedly linked to a Pakistan-based terror cell that ASIO suspects plotted to bomb Australian military bases last year. Fourth-year medical student Izhar Ul-Haque has spent his second night in the nation's highest-security prison, the Supermax at Goulburn, after becoming only the second person charged in Australia with terrorism offences since the 1978 Hilton bombing. NSW Premier Bob Carr confirmed yesterday that his Government had been asked to make preparations to house more than one suspect in its prison system. "We were...

The alleged mastermind of a planned terrorist attack in Australia used a NSW Government website to get maps, data and satellite images of potential targets, including Sydney's Centrepoint, the Parramatta CBD and transport systems. "He was using it during office hours to look at things like the numbers of floors in a building," a former colleague of Faheem Lodhi told the Herald. "He was interested in areas dead smack in the middle of the city." Lodhi, 34, also bought a map of the country's energy supply system, which gave details of the routes of gas pipelines and the location of...

SO it wasn't a political stunt. It isn't about Iraq. And the threat of Islamist terror right here is more real than many pretend. How real? If the police are right, they have saved scores of you from being blown up -- as people in Madrid and London were blown up. As NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney put it, the arrest yesterday of 17 Muslim men disrupted "the final stages of a large-scale terrorist attack". He said explosive material had already been collected. Yet only last week, Prime Minister John Howard was pilloried by many for having warned of an...

SYDNEY - The French authorities have told Australia that a suspected terrorist now in a Parisian jail spent months in Sydney helping to prepare an attack 'of great size' on the country, The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday. The suspect, Willie Brigitte, was deported from Australia to France in October and allegedly had links to the terrorist groups which carried out the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and the March 11 Madrid train bombings. The dossier was reportedly drawn up by French anti-terror judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere as part of a request for assistance from the Australian authorities. In...

Suspected terrorist Willie Brigitte was reportedly sent to Australia to help a local terror group prepare a terrorist act "of great size". Brigitte, 35, who was deported last October and is in French custody, was a link figure in the world terrorist network who had connections with the organisers of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the March 11 Madrid train blasts, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph reported. It said his potential targets included the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and the Australian army's administrative compound at Victoria Barracks, both in Sydney, and the Perth headquarters of Australia's SAS regiment. French authorities...

AN alert fertiliser supplier may have prevented an associate of terror suspect Willie Brigitte bombing a Sydney military facility, a fertiliser industry spokesman said today. A Sydney colleague of the deported Frenchman is under police and ASIO investigation for attempting to buy large quantities of chemicals, including the fertiliser ammonium nitrate. Ammonium nitrate was used to destroy the Sari Club in Bali in 2002. Brigitte has told his French interrogators that the colleague, whom he identified by an alias Abu Hamza, was preparing a large-scale terrorist attack. Investigators suspected Hamza's potential Sydney targets were the Holsworthy Army base, Victoria Barracks,...

It's the story John Howard can't ignore. Sunday will reveal how French suspect Willie Brigitte was sent to Australia by a Pakistani terrorist organisation and was considering which military targets the group would attack. Sunday's Sarah Ferguson spent a month in Paris, piecing together Brigitte's five months in Australia, with the help of French intelligence. Under interrogation, Brigitte admitted to the French he was trained in weapons, explosives and high-altitude endurance by the terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba. Sunday has identified Brigitte's key contact in Australia, a man also believed to be a member of the Pakistani terrorist organisation. And Sunday will...

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...

TERROR suspect Willie Brigitte told a fellow Muslim extremist he was planning to launch an attack in Australia, it emerged yesterday. Judicial officials in Paris revealed Frenchman Ibrahim Keita had admitted Brigitte told him in a telephone conversation before he was captured in Sydney last month that he was organising an attack. Keita, 37, was arrested in Paris on Monday for terrorist activities. A highly placed legal source told The Sunday Telegraph Brigitte asked Keita to join the Australian operation as a driver. Brigitte did not specify the nature or time frame of the attack. The revelation is the first...

French terror suspect Willie Brigitte spoke of plotting a terror attack in Australia before he was arrested and sent back to France, a suspected French Islamic militant has told investigators. Willie Virgile Brigitte was deported to France in October. In a subsequent operation this week in France, police tracked down one of his acquaintances, Ibrahim Keita, who is accused of providing logistical support to Islamic militants. Keita, a 37-year-old French convert to Islam, was placed under investigation - a step short of formal charges - for suspected links to terrorist groups, judicial officials said yesterday, on condition of anonymity. Under...

Sydney terror suspect linked to al-Qaeda bombers By Ellen Connolly in Paris and Darren Goodsir November 18, 2003 Connections ... Willie Brigitte. The deported French terrorist suspect Willie Brigitte has been linked to the most senior echelons of al-Qaeda. One of his associates counts Osama bin Laden and September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed as confidants, a French terrorism expert close the investigation told the Herald. Pierre Conesa, a former terrorism adviser to the French Government, said yesterday that Brigitte, 35, had been targeted after his name featured on a list of people contacted by two men accused of plotting...

HE chowed down like a true gastronome on her beef rendang and chicken liver stir fry but, when it came to handing out change, al-Qaeda's man in Sydney was a chump. If Willie Brigitte was the Islamic terrorist menace that Australian authorities believe he is, he had many more people than his wife fooled. First among them was Alihma Mohd, the woman who gave Brigitte his job in the Island Dreams Cafe in Sydney's CBD in early July, and who regularly reminded him about when to pray. She was first introduced to the big, pear-shaped bloke she came to know...

THE Sydney woman who in September wed al-Qaeda operative and alleged terrorist Willie Brigitte after converting to Islam had been part of a Jewish gay group just 18 months earlier. Melanie Brown was photographed on the edge of a float in the 2002 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, wearing long lace-up Doc Martens. The float called "Twice Blessed" was built by Dayenu, a support group for Sydney's Jewish gays and lesbians. The Daily Telegraph understands Ms Brown became part of Dayenu in 2000 and then worked to build its floats in both 2001 and 2002. A former member of Dayenu...

Australia raids homes to thwart 'terror cell' October 27 2003 at 10:21AM By Belinda Goldsmith Canberra - Australia may have broken up a terror cell with a series of raids launched after the deportation of a French national suspected of training with al-Qaeda. Bob Carr, premier of the state of New South Wales where the man was detained, told reporters on Monday the presence of the 35-year-old Frenchman, arrested on October 9, deported to France and now being held there on suspicion of terror links, had been worrying. Police and intelligence officers from the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation raided at...

CANBERRA, Australia, Oct 27, 2003 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Australian anti-terror police were on high alert Monday after learning of activities of a deported French man with al-Qaida connections, the BBC reported. Bob Carr, premier of New South Wales state, described the man, Willie Virgile Brigitte, as a "serious character whose presence here was worrying." Raids were conducted on a number of houses in south-western Sydney Sunday and six people were interviewed about Brigitte, who spent five months in Australia before being deported Oct. 17. Brigitte is still in France, where he is being held on terror-related charges....

Terror suspect linked to Afghan assassination October 28, 2003 - 9:11AM 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...

Aussie terror suspect arrestOctober 26, 2003A MAN who French authorities feared may have been preparing a terrorist attack was arrested in Sydney for breaching his tourist visa. Willie Virgile Brigitte, a French national, was arrested on October 9, 18 days after French police first warned Australian authorities of his presence in the country. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said today Brigitte, who has now been taken back to France for questioning over terrorist-related offences there, had entered the country posing as a tourist in May this year. He said France warned authorities on September 22 that Brigitte had trained with terrorists in...

ASIO and federal and state police have launched a series of raids after French warnings of an alleged terrorist plot in Australia. Search warrants were executed in Sydney yesterday following the expulsion of French national Willie Virgile Brigitte nine days ago and 18 days after French police first warned Australian authorities of his presence in the country. Mr Brigitte, who had been in Australia for six months, had allegedly had terrorist training in Afghanistan or Pakistan. He is being held in Paris for suspected terrorism-related offences and connections to al-Qaeda. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the warrants were issued under the...