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Arrested CERN Physicist Gets 5 Years For Terror Plot
An anonymous reader sends this followup to news we discussed in 2009 of a CERN physicist who was arrested for allegedly being in contact with al-Qaeda. The physicist, Adlene Hicheur, has now been sentenced to five years in prison.
"He came under suspicion when threatening messages were sent to President Sarkozy in early 2008. The security services uncovered a series of email exchanges between Hicheur and an alleged al-Qaeda member called Mustapha Debchi. After his arrest in 2009 police found a large quantity of Islamist literature at his parents' home. At the start of his trial the 35-year-old scientist admitted that he had been going through a psychologically 'turbulent' time in his life when he wrote the emails. He had suffered a serious back injury, for which he had been taking morphine. But he always denied he intended to carry out any attacks."
Well, that's OK then, let him go.
Yeah! Just leave that to the birds! :-)
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I'm intrigued by the nearly-impressionistic courtroom sketch artist's work displayed in the article.
Proverbs 21:19
What's a fracking wanker? Is that like, someone who jerks off to the extraction of shale oil?
Or *use* CERN to destroy the false vacuum.
As far as I can tell this guy did not actually do anything. He got 5 years for a thought crime.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Nice guess: "General director of the National Police Frederic Pechenard stated in November 2009 that Hicheur planned to attack a base of the National Defence in Annecy, which harbours the 27eme bataillon de chasseurs alpins, involved in Afghanistan." (Wikipedia.)
In short, it looks like he was a scientist who hated the government, not someone bent on destroying the accomplishments of western civilization.
Interestingly, the BBC article calls CERN "Cern" as though it were a person. To whom do we address our complaints?
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And Standard Model is His prophet!
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
After his arrest in 2009 police found a large quantity of Islamist literature at his parents' home.
He obviously must be a terrorist, then.
FTFY
i bet it turned out to be an oversized print of a single copy of the quran. jihad on me for not capitalizing it. so if i find a large quantity of christian literature, should i assume an impending crusade? actually, i probably should.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
if you threaten mayhem, it is a not a "thought crime" to catch you and punish you on that basis
if you threaten mayhem it is a statement of intent, for which you can, and should, be punished
for example, if i were to threaten the life of the president, i would get a visit from the secret service, and i should get such a visit, and i should be punished
if i call my girlfriend and tell her i am going to kill her, she should call the police, and the police should visit me, and they should visit me, and i should be punished
this is not rocket science here folks. if you make a statement of intent to do bodily harm, it is going to be taken seriously, and it should be taken seriously
now mod me troll and go back to being flabbergasted at a simple commonplace and normal legal convention
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Almost, it is someone who extract shale gas while wanking.
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
for example, if i were to threaten the life of the president, i would get a visit from the secret service, and i should get such a visit, and i should be punished
You'd probably get a visit but you should NOT be punished.
In this instance the jail time comes because he went beyond stupid threats into contacting someone else about details that might bring threats to fruition. A much grayer area than mere threats...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think I read before that BBC policy is to only capitalize the first letter of acronyms, as distinct in this context from initialisms, which are when you abbreviate something with the first letter of every word but don't pronounce the result as if a word e.g. Cern vs EPA.
The enemies of Democracy are
The ability tear this universe another black hole. I just shudder to think.
Uttering threats is a criminal act in Canada.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Interestingly, the BBC article calls CERN "Cern" as though it were a person. To whom do we address our complaints?
To Bbc?
Murder: Get X years, life in prison, or death penalty
Attempted murder: Get X/2 years
Why are we rewarding people for failure?
He was probably getting anti-matter to blow up the Vatican.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Maybe a battlestar pilot with a habit of rubbing-one-out on the hangar deck after a successful run against the toasters.
The penalty for this very serious crime is unbelievably lenient. The muslims of France who would wish her ill, must be pissing themselves laughing now.
Well now he has 5 years to let his back heal without too much else to worry about.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What ever happened to old fashioned spycraft? You know who he is, put him under surveillance, monitor his emails/phone/travel/visitors, he's in contact with al Qaeda, let him run with it. If he is directed to meet any local AQ contacts, bam, new surveillance targets. If he organises an actual attack, you intercept and now you have him and possibly a whole local cell, and not just for writing a few stupid emails. Hell, if nothing happens, then arrest him, wave terrorism charges at him, but only to turn him and send him out to work for you; give him a better story to lure out AQ, say he has access to radioactive material for a dirty bomb, but needs explosives and a bomb maker...
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
What constitutes a "large quantity" of Islamist literature? When Christians get arrested do the articles talk about large quantities of Christian literature being found in their homes? What a horrible article.
He was probably going to blow up CERN the fracking wanker.
No. He was planning on developing a process whereby 100% of the mass in a 3oz. bottle of distilled water could be converted to energy. Should be roughly enough to blow up a plane, all the surrounding planes, the airport and a good size chunk of surrounding city.
The activating mechanism, of course, fits in his underwear.
The security services uncovered a series of email exchanges between Hicheur and an alleged al-Qaeda member called Mustapha Debchi.
OK, Alleged. Someone alleged to be part of the Al-Qaeda. Why would that be a crime?
After his arrest in 2009 police found a large quantity of Islamist literature at his parents' home.
This is utterly ridiculous! What the fuck? Where is his religious freedom? I'm atheist as fuck, but if this dude had Christian literature it wouldn't have even garnered attention. Fuck everything about this.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Who knows? Maybe some people thought that black hole creation theory was probable and decided they wanted to secure that weapon of mass destruction for use against the decadent West.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
that's dumb.
Britons call it "the beeb" anyway, should we not call them the Bbc?
This is not in any way standard English
Of course not, there's no such thing.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
To Bbc?
Yes, but only on Bcc.
Ezekiel 23:20
Issuing death threats in writing or over the phone is a crime in most places, when done in a manner that can be recorded a direct threat of violence ceases to be a thought crime and becomes a stated intention, (metaphorically, it's a declaration of war). OTHOH, 5yrs is way over the top for such a trivial offence against the peace the rest of us actively maintain, especially since he had time to act on his threats but chose not to. A weekend in the slammer would be more than enough to convince him he's not as 'smart' as he thinks he is.
I think more fair chunk of the violence in the world could be averted if someone steps in early and cools things down with a glimpse of the consequences (or a distractingly funny one liner), but 5yrs is stepping in with jackboots since it's longer than most people get for carrying out their verbal threats of violence.
In other words, there are no GoodGuys(TM) in TFA, it's not a matter of choosing who's right because neither side has a moral or ethical leg to stand on.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
...don't associate with people named "Mustapha." Also "Damien", "Boris" and "Rasputin".
It won't end well.
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Another bad guy caught with another headline to make politicians and managers look good by playing the numbers game. Why delay another stat at great expense and lost political points when you can get results TODAY? Besides, enemies give you more purpose why would you want really to eliminate them completely?
Run the system like a business, short term gains at low cost and with high volume. Why invest in long term things that will benefit the people who get your job afterwards? If you don't perform as well as the last guy by raising the numbers you may not be around for long...
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Well, it stands for British Broadcasting Corporation, so by their own rules, that would be BBC.
We also call it many things - the beeb, the BBC, auntie, channel one/two etc.
No. He was planning on developing a process whereby 100% of the mass in a 3oz. bottle of distilled water could be converted to energy. Should be roughly enough to blow up a plane, all the surrounding planes, the airport and a good size chunk of surrounding city.
Indeed. About 1.8 megatons of TNT according to e=mc^2... I never get tired of doing that calculation.
The activating mechanism, of course, fits in his underwear.
If by his underwear you mean a colossal Penning trap capable of storing 3oz of antimatter, yes indeed! The brilliance of this evil scientist plot is it will only cost trillions of dollars and take at the very least several decades to fulfill -- so it will easily slip right under the radar.
Eh it makes a certain kind of sense, but someone below said they do PC as Pc which is even dumber.
The enemies of Democracy are
Sure there is. The best part is that there are so many different standards to choose from—and in practice they're all ignored. Just like any other standard.
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that's dumb.
Britons call it "the beeb" anyway, should we not call them the Bbc?
Well. you could always LASER anyone who comes onto your RADAR for using that practice.
...he didn't actually do anything and gets five years in prison for - nothing??? What third-world dictatorship does he live in?!?
Actually he was a secret agent of the pentecostal church trying to trigger the apocalypse by creating a mini black hole that would end up engulfing the planet.
...I would welcome a 5-year prison sentence for a person who calls himself a physicist while entertaining idiotic superstitions. But this is a matter of incompetence and possibly fraud, not terrorism.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Sorry, but where, exactly? Sounds like you just made that up.
Mr Southey said Mrs Roberts had told one officer, Pc Jacqui Reid, that she did not mind being searched but would prefer it to be conducted at a police station as young people with whom she worked might see her being searched in the street.
It seems they're now inconsistent about it, because the next few articles all use PC, but going back a bit further you'll find a lot.
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Well, played...
Much more likely he was going to point the proton stream at Sarkozy.
Interesting account of a human intercepting a proton-accelerator beam with his head.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
We cross the streams all the time. That's how we get collisions :P If you look closely at the LHC status pages you can even see what the crossing angle is :P
If by his underwear you mean a colossal Penning trap capable of storing 3oz of antimatter, yes indeed! The brilliance of this evil scientist plot is it will only cost trillions of dollars and take at the very least several decades to fulfill -- so it will easily slip right under the radar.
No I didn't. For one thing, that doubles the amount of mass involved, multiplying the explosive effect. Show some restraint!
He's a physicist. That means he should have developed a process whereby he can flip over 50% of the water molecules into an anti-matter state under the influence of a catalytic reaction induced by 2 AA batteries and a single grain of table salt. I think Isaac Asimov wrote a story to that effect once.
Snarfiness aside, that's how terrorists got to be more scary than the Evil Empire. The more we learn about the Universe, the more powerful the levers we learn how to pull are. A single person these days can wreak more havoc than an entire barbarian horde used to.