Quite interesting bits related to the French terrorist convert in Australia Willie Brigitte and the Pakistan and LET connection:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200...842705.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Brigitte sent to Australia for terrorist plot, court told</b>
By Rafael Epstein
A Paris court has heard evidence that French Muslim convert Willie Brigitte was sent to Australia to plot a terrorist attack on the orders of Pakistani extremists.
French terrorism investigators told the court they believe Brigitte played a major role in a plot to commit terrorist attacks in Sydney four years ago.
The 38-year-old French Muslim convert is charged with terrorist activity in France, Pakistan and Australia, but is refusing to cooperate with the court.
The court heard that the days before he left for Australia, investigators tracked a number of phone calls between Brigitte and two suspects - one in Pakistan and another who was later arrested in Britain.
One of the men is said to have asked during a recorded conversation, quote "How is our French connection project?" - a reference to Brigitte.
Brigitte has repeatedly refused requests from the judge to respond to evidence he had given contradictory statements to investigators.
<b>The court heard Brigitte had initially told French interrogators that he had undergone training and had been involved in a plot.</b>
But then he said he had been manipulated and he had feared for his life and the safety of his wife.
<b>Later he denied any training and any knowledge of a plot. </b>
In court, he refused repeated requests to explain his changing answers to questions under interrogation.
The trial is expected to conclude tomorrow.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Having been caught, Brigitte chooses to save his own skin rather than continue showing solidarity to the Ummah:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/02/07/...l?s_cid=rss_smh
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Brigitte: I'm no terrorist</b>
WILLY BRIGITTE, the Frenchman accused of plotting to blow up nuclear and military installations in Australia, said in a French court yesterday that he was not a terrorist and that "after three years in prison, I have lost all trust in French justice".
Dressed in a black tracksuit, his short black hair in dreadlocks, the Caribbean-born Brigitte faced a three-judge tribunal whose president read a dossier of his alleged terrorist activities compiled by French investigators.
But when Brigitte was given his chance to respond, he dismissed the claims against him.
"If an impartial investigation had been conducted, it would have shown I am not a terrorist, I have never been involved in the preparation of a terrorist act," Brigitte told the court.
"Terrorism is the opposite of my conception of life, and the conception of Islam, which believes in the respect of life."
(Yeah, yeah. Religion of peace. Got it. Yawn.)
The dossier included an allegation that a document found on Brigitte - who lived in Sydney from May to October 2003 - contained maps of Australian military and nuclear installations, the judge said. The maps had been downloaded from websites. Brigitte also possessed a copy of The Art of War by Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu and information on how to escape detection in crowded places.
(Why is it that all these islamoterrorists can't resist picking up a copy of the pagan Art of War or learning pagan Asian martial arts? Guess, it's because there is no science or logic to their own islamic ideology and so they've only ever plagiarised techniques and ideas from kafirs.)
A mobile phone taken from Brigitte showed that calls he made before arriving in Australia in May 2003 included ones to an Australian number.
Judge Jacqueline Rebeyrotte said an al-Qaeda member under questioning had said a large-scale attack, possibly involving the Opera House, had been planned. But Brigitte's name was not mentioned specifically in this context.
Judge Rebeyrotte said the radical Islamists with whom Brigitte had trained in Kazakhstan in 2001 were the same people he had maintained contact with in Europe, the US and Australia.
<b>For example, Sheik Abdul Salam Zoud, who married Willie Brigitte and Melanie Brown in Sydney in 2003, was good friends with two Americans of Pakistani origin who were in the same Lashkar-e-Taiba camp with Brigitte in Pakistan in 2001.</b>
Flanked by two guards, Brigitte stood for 100 minutes as the judge read the dossier outlining his conversion to a radical form of Islam in 1997, his study in Yemen under jihadists known to be connected to Osama bin Laden, and his participation in secret military training in Normandy and Fontainbleau, 50 kilometres from Paris, in 1998 and 1999.
He is charged with "criminal conspiracy in relation to a terrorist enterprise," the offence most French terrorism suspects are charged with and which carries a jail sentence of up to 10 years.
Entering the Palais de Justice court, one of Brigitte's lawyers, Jean-Claude Durimel, said the case against him was without proof. Mr Durimel's brother Harry, who is also representing Brigitte, said his client went to the camps merely to "deepen his faith".
He said the prosecution of Brigitte was a typical "post-September 11 case. They are trying to clean up the world that seems to be too Muslim".
(What's the defence saying: that when people finally realised nazism was evil, it was scapegoating to accuse nazis of nazism?
Only after Sept 11 did the rest of the world catch on a little to what islam was.)
<i>with AAP</i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
More on the involvement of Pakis following the religion of peace:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...3-23109,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Brigitte terror trial begins in Paris</b>
By Chris Lines and Pierre Grundman in Paris
February 08, 2007
FRENCH Muslim convert Willie Brigitte, accused of a terrorist plot in Australia, told investigators he went to the country to flee the influence of an Islamic extremist group leader, a Paris court heard.
Brigitte is accused, among other things, of <b>setting up a terror cell in Australia on the orders of the Pakistani Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Toiba.</b>
Targets were to include the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney and military bases across the country.
He faces up to 10 years' jail on a charge of criminal association with a view to committing a terrorist act.
More than three and a half years since his arrest in, and deportation from, Australia, he finally got his day in court overnight.
Wearing short dreadlocks, a goatee beard and thin-rimmed glasses, he stood in the dock of the court in the Palais de Justice, flanked by two armed security guards, and listened as chief judge Jacqueline Rebeyrotte outlined the case against him.
âYou are alleged to have taken part in a group on the territories of Yemen, Pakistan and Australia that was formed in order to prepare one or several terrorist acts,â the judge said.
The judge said Brigitte had told investigators he went to Australia to escape the influence of <b>Lashkar-e-Toiba</b> commander Sajid Mir and Australian-based terrorist Faheem Lodhi.
(Poor unfortunate islamoterrorist Brigitte, afraid of the more advanced terrorists of islam.)
Mir is being tried as a co-accused in absentia.
Pakistan-born architect Lodhi has been sentenced to 20 years' jail for plotting to blow up Sydney's electricity grid.
Brigitte married former Australian Army signaller and Muslim convert Melanie Brown, who was questioned by French officials and whose evidence is to be used in the Paris trial.
âAt one stage he understood that he was being manipulated, but by getting married in Australia he was hoping to escape the control of Sajid and Abu-Hamza (Lodhi's alias),â the judge told the court when detailing the case built by investigators.
The judge also told the court that Pakistani-Americans subsequently convicted in the US had given evidence that Brigitte had undergone weapons training alongside them in Pakistan.
Throughout the proceedings Brigitte sat stony faced and refused to answer questions, after first making a brief statement saying his testimony to investigators was being misrepresented.
âIf an impartial investigation had been conducted, it would have shown I am not a terrorist. I have never been involved in the preparation of a terrorist act,â he told the court.
âTerrorism is the opposite of my conception of life and the conception of Islam, which believes in the respect of life.
âI have lost all faith in French justice. I have decided I will not declare anything to you anymore, and will let my lawyers speak for me.â
Throughout the hearing, the judge repeatedly asked Brigitte why he refused to answer questions after having co-operated with investigators and whether that showed he was afraid of retribution from Islamist groups.
Brigitte refused to reply.
Outside court, Brigitte's lawyers denied their client was involved in terrorist groups.
They said he attended camps with the banned terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba only for religious instruction, despite the fact weapons and explosives training were conducted there.
(Attending religious instruction at banned terrorist group training camp!)
âIf people you were learning with were only teaching, weapons and fighting and killing, that is not why he would have gone - he went there for the religious part,â his lawyer Harry Durimel said.
(Dhimmi Durimel)
âIs it a crime to learn you religion, is it a crime to use your knowledge in an organisation?â
Mr Durimel also said Brigitte only went to Australia to âstart a new life and get married to an Australian womanâ.
(I don't move anywhere specifically to marry a random local? What's up with that? He married her, an ex-army person, within 13 days of their meeting!)
Brigitte, a 38-year-old from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, was arrested in Australia in 2003 following a tip-off from the French intelligence services and deported for immigration offences.
The prosecution case against Brigitte will detail not just his activities in Australia in 2003 - where he lived in Sydney for five months before being detected - but will go back to his conversion to Islam at the end of 1997.
Soon afterwards he joined a group which underwent military-style training in France.
Some members of that group were later convicted over the assassination of anti-Taliban Afghan leader Ahmad Shah Massood in September 2001.
It is alleged Brigitte went to Yemen for religious training in Islamic schools linked to people close to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
After Yemen, Brigitte allegedly underwent weapons and explosives training at a Lashkar-e-Toiba camp in Pakistan.
<b>It is there that he met Mir, the man in charge of foreign recruits, who allegedly paid for Brigitte's fare to Australia, and put him in contact with Lodhi.</b>
<b>Lodhi and Mir allegedly planned for Brigitte to link up with a Chechen explosives expert to attack targets in Australia.</b>
<b>In Sydney, Brigitte was in contact with Lodhi and associates connected with the Lakemba Muslim community.</b>
(Terrorist/mufti Sheikh Hilaly was set to speak to the same islamic community of Lakemba yesterday or today.)
When French intelligence eventually realised Brigitte had moved to Australia, they contacted spy agency ASIO, and he was arrested in October 2003 and deported.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
More on the terrorist islamics of Sydney's Lakemba:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...077-601,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Brigitte's five months in Australia were frequently mentioned, including his <b>marriage to Melanie Brown and its celebration by the radical imam of Lakemba Mosque in Sydney's west, Sheik Abdul Salem Mohammed Zoud. </b>
The court also heard of Brigitte's arrest in Australia over visa irregularities.
There were references to website pages, including maps of nuclear installations, and his frequent association with Sunni radicals from the Lakemba Mosque.
The charges, including mention of preparations of attacks in Australia, were expected to be laid out late last night.
Brigitte will retract an earlier admission that he trained with the al-Qa'ida-linked terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan.
He will claim his confession was forced under police pressure and that his travels around the world were to deepen his understanding of Islam.
"I have been studying religion and travelling lot of countries ... and every time I came back I never had any problem with immigration control, and the (French intelligence service) has never had anything against me," he said in his initial outburst.
The opening morning of Brigitte's trial revealed fascinating details of his life and conversion to Islam in the late 1990s.
Brigitte's second wife before his third marriage to the Australian Ms Brown, revealed that he became "a real dictator" who was obsessed with imposing codes of Islamic dress and Koranic rules on her and their two children, after his conversion.
The court also heard of a letter Brigitte wrote to his wife from Yemen, in which he said she had a husband for whom it is "Allah until death".
Brigitte, from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, was arrested in Australia in 2003 following a tip-off from French intelligence services, and deported for immigration offences.
He has been in French custody ever since and now faces up to 10 years in jail.
Brigitte's long-awaited trial was to be heard by three judges over three days under the likely watch of Australian law enforcement authorities.
France's top anti-terrorism judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who investigated the case, suspects him of setting up a terrorist cell in Australia on the orders of Lashkar-e-Toiba.
Its alleged targets included the Pine Gap US electronic intelligence outpost in central Australia, the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney, and military bases across the country.
A former head of France's DGSE foreign intelligence agency, Alain Chouet, has cast doubt on the prosecution's case.
"Objectively, there isn't very much against him. If the Australians had concrete, converging evidence, why didn't they prosecute him themselves?" he said.
(Australia and France together have enough evidence. Brigitte's other islamic friend and contact, Paki Lodhi has already been caught for connected terrorist activities in Australia.)
Additional reporting: AAP, AFP <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here's some more interesting pieces of information - about his latest wife and Paki co-conspirator Lodhi:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21190263-2,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>(Brigitte's Lawyers
Brigitte not part of terror attack plot, court told</b>
By Chris Lines and Pierre Grundman in Paris
February 08, 2007 01:07pm
FRENCH Muslim convert Willie Brigitte moved to Australia to start a new life and flee the influence of Islamic extremists, not to plot a terrorist attack,<i> his lawyers said</i> today.
(He wanted to leave the islamic terrorist lifestyle, but his past was catching up to him? Awwww, poor thing. Worthy of a movie. <!--emo&:thumbdown--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsdownsmileyanim.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='thumbsdownsmileyanim.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
<i>But French prosecutors</i> allege he trained as a terrorist and was planning attacks on Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, the Pine Gap US spy base in central Australia and other strategic targets.
[...]
Brigitte, from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, was arrested in Australia in October 2003 following a tip-off from French intelligence services, and deported to France, where he has been held in custody ever since.
(Are there many islamoconverts in the Caribbean?)
French prosecutors accuse Brigitte of, among other things, setting up a terror cell in Australia on the orders of the Pakistani Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Toiba.
The case alleges he attended Islamic schools linked to al-Qaeda in Yemen and that he later underwent weapons training in Pakistan to prepare him for a terror attack.
"You are accused of taking part in a group on the territories of France, Yemen, Pakistan and Australia that was formed in order to prepare one or several terrorist acts," said chief judge Jacqueline Rebeyrotte, reading out the charge sheet.
Living in the southwest suburbs of Sydney, Brigitte took a job in a kebab shop, married an Australian Muslim convert and former army signaller, Melanie Brown - his third wife - and allegedly drew up plans for an attack.
<b>One of his alleged contacts in Australia was Faheem Khalid Lodhi, a Pakistani-born</b> architect sentenced to 20 years in jail in 2006 for planning to blow up Sydney's power grid.
But the judge said Brigitte had told investigators he went to Australia to escape the influence of Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Sajid Mir - who is being tried as a co-accused in absentia - and of Australian-based Lodhi.
"At one stage he understood that he was being manipulated, but by getting married in Australia he was hoping to escape the control of Sajid and Abu-Hamza (Lodhi's alias)," the judge said.
(Islamoterrorist Brigitte is frightened of his pals, in case he snitches on the grand plans for islamic conquest/destruction.)
Outside court, Brigitte's lawyer, Jean-Claude Durimel, said the prosecution case was not backed up with facts.
Mr Durimel said Brigitte only went to Australia to "start a new life and get married to an Australian woman".
Asked if Brigitte was moved to Sydney as part of a mission, Mr Durimel said: "Yes, if the mission was to marry an ex-Jewish Australian woman who was a convert to Islam and <b>an ex-Australian soldier</b>, but that is not the mission of a mujahideen".
(Never understood how there can be Jewish or Hindu converts to islam. Islamics actually believe Jewish people are literally apes. So if someone is Jewish and converts to islam, do muslims think that person has then changed species to become human? <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Anyway, what a highly coincidental stroke of good fortune that Brigitte got married to an ex-Australian soldier within 13 days of meeting her too, considering that he and his buddies were trying to blow up <i>military</i> bases in Australia, among their targets.)
[...]
(Defence lawyer argues "You can go to Pakistan, but that does not mean you are going to be a terrorist."
(Well, actually... <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Anyway, convert dude went to Pak to study in the terrorist camps of LET.
2+2 = .... 4. Yes, 4 follows from the rest of the equation.)
When the trial resumes late tonight (AEDT) it is expected to turn its attention to Brigitte's activities in Australia in 2003 - <b>principally his relationship with Lodhi.</b>
The court is also expected to hear the testimony of Brown, who has spoken to French investigators.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200...842705.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Brigitte sent to Australia for terrorist plot, court told</b>
By Rafael Epstein
A Paris court has heard evidence that French Muslim convert Willie Brigitte was sent to Australia to plot a terrorist attack on the orders of Pakistani extremists.
French terrorism investigators told the court they believe Brigitte played a major role in a plot to commit terrorist attacks in Sydney four years ago.
The 38-year-old French Muslim convert is charged with terrorist activity in France, Pakistan and Australia, but is refusing to cooperate with the court.
The court heard that the days before he left for Australia, investigators tracked a number of phone calls between Brigitte and two suspects - one in Pakistan and another who was later arrested in Britain.
One of the men is said to have asked during a recorded conversation, quote "How is our French connection project?" - a reference to Brigitte.
Brigitte has repeatedly refused requests from the judge to respond to evidence he had given contradictory statements to investigators.
<b>The court heard Brigitte had initially told French interrogators that he had undergone training and had been involved in a plot.</b>
But then he said he had been manipulated and he had feared for his life and the safety of his wife.
<b>Later he denied any training and any knowledge of a plot. </b>
In court, he refused repeated requests to explain his changing answers to questions under interrogation.
The trial is expected to conclude tomorrow.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Having been caught, Brigitte chooses to save his own skin rather than continue showing solidarity to the Ummah:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/02/07/...l?s_cid=rss_smh
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Brigitte: I'm no terrorist</b>
WILLY BRIGITTE, the Frenchman accused of plotting to blow up nuclear and military installations in Australia, said in a French court yesterday that he was not a terrorist and that "after three years in prison, I have lost all trust in French justice".
Dressed in a black tracksuit, his short black hair in dreadlocks, the Caribbean-born Brigitte faced a three-judge tribunal whose president read a dossier of his alleged terrorist activities compiled by French investigators.
But when Brigitte was given his chance to respond, he dismissed the claims against him.
"If an impartial investigation had been conducted, it would have shown I am not a terrorist, I have never been involved in the preparation of a terrorist act," Brigitte told the court.
"Terrorism is the opposite of my conception of life, and the conception of Islam, which believes in the respect of life."
(Yeah, yeah. Religion of peace. Got it. Yawn.)
The dossier included an allegation that a document found on Brigitte - who lived in Sydney from May to October 2003 - contained maps of Australian military and nuclear installations, the judge said. The maps had been downloaded from websites. Brigitte also possessed a copy of The Art of War by Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu and information on how to escape detection in crowded places.
(Why is it that all these islamoterrorists can't resist picking up a copy of the pagan Art of War or learning pagan Asian martial arts? Guess, it's because there is no science or logic to their own islamic ideology and so they've only ever plagiarised techniques and ideas from kafirs.)
A mobile phone taken from Brigitte showed that calls he made before arriving in Australia in May 2003 included ones to an Australian number.
Judge Jacqueline Rebeyrotte said an al-Qaeda member under questioning had said a large-scale attack, possibly involving the Opera House, had been planned. But Brigitte's name was not mentioned specifically in this context.
Judge Rebeyrotte said the radical Islamists with whom Brigitte had trained in Kazakhstan in 2001 were the same people he had maintained contact with in Europe, the US and Australia.
<b>For example, Sheik Abdul Salam Zoud, who married Willie Brigitte and Melanie Brown in Sydney in 2003, was good friends with two Americans of Pakistani origin who were in the same Lashkar-e-Taiba camp with Brigitte in Pakistan in 2001.</b>
Flanked by two guards, Brigitte stood for 100 minutes as the judge read the dossier outlining his conversion to a radical form of Islam in 1997, his study in Yemen under jihadists known to be connected to Osama bin Laden, and his participation in secret military training in Normandy and Fontainbleau, 50 kilometres from Paris, in 1998 and 1999.
He is charged with "criminal conspiracy in relation to a terrorist enterprise," the offence most French terrorism suspects are charged with and which carries a jail sentence of up to 10 years.
Entering the Palais de Justice court, one of Brigitte's lawyers, Jean-Claude Durimel, said the case against him was without proof. Mr Durimel's brother Harry, who is also representing Brigitte, said his client went to the camps merely to "deepen his faith".
He said the prosecution of Brigitte was a typical "post-September 11 case. They are trying to clean up the world that seems to be too Muslim".
(What's the defence saying: that when people finally realised nazism was evil, it was scapegoating to accuse nazis of nazism?
Only after Sept 11 did the rest of the world catch on a little to what islam was.)
<i>with AAP</i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
More on the involvement of Pakis following the religion of peace:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...3-23109,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Brigitte terror trial begins in Paris</b>
By Chris Lines and Pierre Grundman in Paris
February 08, 2007
FRENCH Muslim convert Willie Brigitte, accused of a terrorist plot in Australia, told investigators he went to the country to flee the influence of an Islamic extremist group leader, a Paris court heard.
Brigitte is accused, among other things, of <b>setting up a terror cell in Australia on the orders of the Pakistani Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Toiba.</b>
Targets were to include the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney and military bases across the country.
He faces up to 10 years' jail on a charge of criminal association with a view to committing a terrorist act.
More than three and a half years since his arrest in, and deportation from, Australia, he finally got his day in court overnight.
Wearing short dreadlocks, a goatee beard and thin-rimmed glasses, he stood in the dock of the court in the Palais de Justice, flanked by two armed security guards, and listened as chief judge Jacqueline Rebeyrotte outlined the case against him.
âYou are alleged to have taken part in a group on the territories of Yemen, Pakistan and Australia that was formed in order to prepare one or several terrorist acts,â the judge said.
The judge said Brigitte had told investigators he went to Australia to escape the influence of <b>Lashkar-e-Toiba</b> commander Sajid Mir and Australian-based terrorist Faheem Lodhi.
(Poor unfortunate islamoterrorist Brigitte, afraid of the more advanced terrorists of islam.)
Mir is being tried as a co-accused in absentia.
Pakistan-born architect Lodhi has been sentenced to 20 years' jail for plotting to blow up Sydney's electricity grid.
Brigitte married former Australian Army signaller and Muslim convert Melanie Brown, who was questioned by French officials and whose evidence is to be used in the Paris trial.
âAt one stage he understood that he was being manipulated, but by getting married in Australia he was hoping to escape the control of Sajid and Abu-Hamza (Lodhi's alias),â the judge told the court when detailing the case built by investigators.
The judge also told the court that Pakistani-Americans subsequently convicted in the US had given evidence that Brigitte had undergone weapons training alongside them in Pakistan.
Throughout the proceedings Brigitte sat stony faced and refused to answer questions, after first making a brief statement saying his testimony to investigators was being misrepresented.
âIf an impartial investigation had been conducted, it would have shown I am not a terrorist. I have never been involved in the preparation of a terrorist act,â he told the court.
âTerrorism is the opposite of my conception of life and the conception of Islam, which believes in the respect of life.
âI have lost all faith in French justice. I have decided I will not declare anything to you anymore, and will let my lawyers speak for me.â
Throughout the hearing, the judge repeatedly asked Brigitte why he refused to answer questions after having co-operated with investigators and whether that showed he was afraid of retribution from Islamist groups.
Brigitte refused to reply.
Outside court, Brigitte's lawyers denied their client was involved in terrorist groups.
They said he attended camps with the banned terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba only for religious instruction, despite the fact weapons and explosives training were conducted there.
(Attending religious instruction at banned terrorist group training camp!)
âIf people you were learning with were only teaching, weapons and fighting and killing, that is not why he would have gone - he went there for the religious part,â his lawyer Harry Durimel said.
(Dhimmi Durimel)
âIs it a crime to learn you religion, is it a crime to use your knowledge in an organisation?â
Mr Durimel also said Brigitte only went to Australia to âstart a new life and get married to an Australian womanâ.
(I don't move anywhere specifically to marry a random local? What's up with that? He married her, an ex-army person, within 13 days of their meeting!)
Brigitte, a 38-year-old from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, was arrested in Australia in 2003 following a tip-off from the French intelligence services and deported for immigration offences.
The prosecution case against Brigitte will detail not just his activities in Australia in 2003 - where he lived in Sydney for five months before being detected - but will go back to his conversion to Islam at the end of 1997.
Soon afterwards he joined a group which underwent military-style training in France.
Some members of that group were later convicted over the assassination of anti-Taliban Afghan leader Ahmad Shah Massood in September 2001.
It is alleged Brigitte went to Yemen for religious training in Islamic schools linked to people close to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
After Yemen, Brigitte allegedly underwent weapons and explosives training at a Lashkar-e-Toiba camp in Pakistan.
<b>It is there that he met Mir, the man in charge of foreign recruits, who allegedly paid for Brigitte's fare to Australia, and put him in contact with Lodhi.</b>
<b>Lodhi and Mir allegedly planned for Brigitte to link up with a Chechen explosives expert to attack targets in Australia.</b>
<b>In Sydney, Brigitte was in contact with Lodhi and associates connected with the Lakemba Muslim community.</b>
(Terrorist/mufti Sheikh Hilaly was set to speak to the same islamic community of Lakemba yesterday or today.)
When French intelligence eventually realised Brigitte had moved to Australia, they contacted spy agency ASIO, and he was arrested in October 2003 and deported.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
More on the terrorist islamics of Sydney's Lakemba:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...077-601,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Brigitte's five months in Australia were frequently mentioned, including his <b>marriage to Melanie Brown and its celebration by the radical imam of Lakemba Mosque in Sydney's west, Sheik Abdul Salem Mohammed Zoud. </b>
The court also heard of Brigitte's arrest in Australia over visa irregularities.
There were references to website pages, including maps of nuclear installations, and his frequent association with Sunni radicals from the Lakemba Mosque.
The charges, including mention of preparations of attacks in Australia, were expected to be laid out late last night.
Brigitte will retract an earlier admission that he trained with the al-Qa'ida-linked terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan.
He will claim his confession was forced under police pressure and that his travels around the world were to deepen his understanding of Islam.
"I have been studying religion and travelling lot of countries ... and every time I came back I never had any problem with immigration control, and the (French intelligence service) has never had anything against me," he said in his initial outburst.
The opening morning of Brigitte's trial revealed fascinating details of his life and conversion to Islam in the late 1990s.
Brigitte's second wife before his third marriage to the Australian Ms Brown, revealed that he became "a real dictator" who was obsessed with imposing codes of Islamic dress and Koranic rules on her and their two children, after his conversion.
The court also heard of a letter Brigitte wrote to his wife from Yemen, in which he said she had a husband for whom it is "Allah until death".
Brigitte, from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, was arrested in Australia in 2003 following a tip-off from French intelligence services, and deported for immigration offences.
He has been in French custody ever since and now faces up to 10 years in jail.
Brigitte's long-awaited trial was to be heard by three judges over three days under the likely watch of Australian law enforcement authorities.
France's top anti-terrorism judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who investigated the case, suspects him of setting up a terrorist cell in Australia on the orders of Lashkar-e-Toiba.
Its alleged targets included the Pine Gap US electronic intelligence outpost in central Australia, the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney, and military bases across the country.
A former head of France's DGSE foreign intelligence agency, Alain Chouet, has cast doubt on the prosecution's case.
"Objectively, there isn't very much against him. If the Australians had concrete, converging evidence, why didn't they prosecute him themselves?" he said.
(Australia and France together have enough evidence. Brigitte's other islamic friend and contact, Paki Lodhi has already been caught for connected terrorist activities in Australia.)
Additional reporting: AAP, AFP <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here's some more interesting pieces of information - about his latest wife and Paki co-conspirator Lodhi:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21190263-2,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>(Brigitte's Lawyers
Brigitte not part of terror attack plot, court told</b>By Chris Lines and Pierre Grundman in Paris
February 08, 2007 01:07pm
FRENCH Muslim convert Willie Brigitte moved to Australia to start a new life and flee the influence of Islamic extremists, not to plot a terrorist attack,<i> his lawyers said</i> today.
(He wanted to leave the islamic terrorist lifestyle, but his past was catching up to him? Awwww, poor thing. Worthy of a movie. <!--emo&:thumbdown--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsdownsmileyanim.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='thumbsdownsmileyanim.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
<i>But French prosecutors</i> allege he trained as a terrorist and was planning attacks on Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, the Pine Gap US spy base in central Australia and other strategic targets.
[...]
Brigitte, from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, was arrested in Australia in October 2003 following a tip-off from French intelligence services, and deported to France, where he has been held in custody ever since.
(Are there many islamoconverts in the Caribbean?)
French prosecutors accuse Brigitte of, among other things, setting up a terror cell in Australia on the orders of the Pakistani Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Toiba.
The case alleges he attended Islamic schools linked to al-Qaeda in Yemen and that he later underwent weapons training in Pakistan to prepare him for a terror attack.
"You are accused of taking part in a group on the territories of France, Yemen, Pakistan and Australia that was formed in order to prepare one or several terrorist acts," said chief judge Jacqueline Rebeyrotte, reading out the charge sheet.
Living in the southwest suburbs of Sydney, Brigitte took a job in a kebab shop, married an Australian Muslim convert and former army signaller, Melanie Brown - his third wife - and allegedly drew up plans for an attack.
<b>One of his alleged contacts in Australia was Faheem Khalid Lodhi, a Pakistani-born</b> architect sentenced to 20 years in jail in 2006 for planning to blow up Sydney's power grid.
But the judge said Brigitte had told investigators he went to Australia to escape the influence of Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Sajid Mir - who is being tried as a co-accused in absentia - and of Australian-based Lodhi.
"At one stage he understood that he was being manipulated, but by getting married in Australia he was hoping to escape the control of Sajid and Abu-Hamza (Lodhi's alias)," the judge said.
(Islamoterrorist Brigitte is frightened of his pals, in case he snitches on the grand plans for islamic conquest/destruction.)
Outside court, Brigitte's lawyer, Jean-Claude Durimel, said the prosecution case was not backed up with facts.
Mr Durimel said Brigitte only went to Australia to "start a new life and get married to an Australian woman".
Asked if Brigitte was moved to Sydney as part of a mission, Mr Durimel said: "Yes, if the mission was to marry an ex-Jewish Australian woman who was a convert to Islam and <b>an ex-Australian soldier</b>, but that is not the mission of a mujahideen".
(Never understood how there can be Jewish or Hindu converts to islam. Islamics actually believe Jewish people are literally apes. So if someone is Jewish and converts to islam, do muslims think that person has then changed species to become human? <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Anyway, what a highly coincidental stroke of good fortune that Brigitte got married to an ex-Australian soldier within 13 days of meeting her too, considering that he and his buddies were trying to blow up <i>military</i> bases in Australia, among their targets.)
[...]
(Defence lawyer argues
"You can go to Pakistan, but that does not mean you are going to be a terrorist." (Well, actually... <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> Anyway, convert dude went to Pak to study in the terrorist camps of LET.
2+2 = .... 4. Yes, 4 follows from the rest of the equation.)
When the trial resumes late tonight (AEDT) it is expected to turn its attention to Brigitte's activities in Australia in 2003 - <b>principally his relationship with Lodhi.</b>
The court is also expected to hear the testimony of Brown, who has spoken to French investigators.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->