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PARIS - A French Muslim convert suspected of plotting to attack an Australian nuclear power station went on trial on terrorism charges in a Paris court on Wednesday.
Willy Brigitte faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of associating with criminals involved in terrorist activities.
He has denied any wrongdoing and told the court French investigators had produced a biased case against him.
"I have no confidence in French justice, in the justice system of this country. I have lost all hope of being understood," he said, after first mumbling a prayer in Arabic.
Prosecutors say Brigitte, 38, and Sajid Mir, his co-accused who is being tried in absentia, considered targeting a nuclear power station or another high-profile facility near Sydney.
Brigitte has been held in detention since he was extradited to France in October 2003 following his arrest in Australia.
The case against him is based on documents found at his Sydney home, an investigation by Australian authorities into suspects linked to the Frenchman and testimony to French police by an Islamic militant, who later withdrew his allegations.
The court heard on Wednesday that police who arrested Brigitte had found a print out of an Internet page in his pocket concerning Australian nuclear and military establishments.
Brigitte, dressed in a black tracksuit and roll neck jumper, said a full investigation would have shown "I am not a terrorist, that I never prepared, organised, or was involved in any terrorist activity whatsoever".
He told the judge terrorism was "contrary to the teaching of Islam, which teaches the respect of human life".
Australia's chief spy said Brigitte had been "almost certainly involved" in activities aimed at harming the country. Australia has been targeted by militant Islamic groups because of its role alongside US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At the time of his arrest, Brigitte was working in a restaurant and was married to Melanie Brown, a former Australian soldier and also a convert to Islam.
Brigitte, who comes from the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe, told police he had gone to Australia to rebuild his life after turning his back on radical Islam.
But police say a search of his Sydney home produced documents linking him to Pakistani Islamic radicals recruiting volunteers to fight in Kashmir, disputed by India and Pakistan.
According to the French investigation, Brigitte travelled to Yemen in 1998 and 1999, and then to Pakistan, staying in fundamentalist religious centres.
Back in France, they say he led a group that conducted military-style training in Fontainebleau Forest near Paris and the Normandy region in the late 1990s.
Several members of the group were among those convicted in May 2005 of providing logistical support to the assassins of Ahmad Shah Masood, the leader of the Northern Alliance killed on the eve of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Two group members died fighting with al Qaeda in Afghanistan and a third was captured by US forces and held without trial in the US military jail at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
- REUTERS
