FED: France could release Aust terrorist Brigitte soon

AAP General News (Australia)
12-02-2009
FED: France could release Aust terrorist Brigitte soon

SYDNEY, Dec 2 AAP - Australia's most notorious terrorist Willie Brigitte could be released
from a French jail in the new year, after having served less than half his sentence for
conspiring to blow up the nation's only nuclear reactor and the power grid.

Brigitte, a French citizen raised in France's West Indian territory of Guadeloupe,
was found guilty in 2007 of criminal association with a view to committing a terrorist
act, and sentenced to nine years imprisonment.

The charges against Brigitte related chiefly to his activities in Australia in 2003,
when he prepared for attacks on targets such as Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor.

His minimum non-parole period is six years, but the three and a half years he spent
in jail awaiting trial and sentence will be discounted off that term.

News Ltd newspapers on Wednesday say the French Justice Ministry is considering releasing
the 41-year-old on an early release good behaviour plan.

"He will be free next year, it was nine years but with good behaviour," his lawyer
Jean Claude Durimel said.

"Of course he is happy. He had no problem in prison, he had good behaviour and when
people are of good behaviour they may leave early."

He is expected to immediately leave France for the Middle East.

Brigitte married former Australian army signaller Melanie Brown, a fellow Muslim convert.

AAP jlw/goc/

KEYWORD: BRIGITTE

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