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6-year sentence sought in French terror trial
Posted: Mar 30, 2012 6:22 PM by Jacqui Heinrich
PARIS (AP) - A French prosecutor has asked a Paris court to sentence an Algerian-born nuclear physicist to six years in prison for his suspected role in plotting terrorism with al-Qaida's north African wing.
The request came at the end of the two-day trial of Adlene Hicheur, a former researcher at Switzerland's CERN laboratory for alleged "criminal association with a view to plotting terrorist attacks."
The 35-year-old scientist and his defenders say he was a victim of allegedly overzealous French anti-terrorism laws and that he explored ideas on jihadist websites - but never took any concrete step toward terrorism.
Hicheur said he was on morphine for a herniated disk when he wrote an 2009 email that advocated an attack on a French military barracks.
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