back to article Large Hadron boffin arrested on terrorism suspicion

An atomic physicist who worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research for six years has been arrested on suspicion he had links to an Al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa. The unnamed man had been assigned to an analysis project for the organization, better known as CERN, since 2003, the group said in a press release …

COMMENTS

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  1. Steven Hunter
    Alert

    Oh lordy no!

    If "The Terrorists" learn the secrets of the Higgs Boson before we do, then we're *all* doomed!!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    money on

    Money on innocent man dragged through the mud for little more then a passing association?

  3. David 45

    From the planet Hadron

    I just KNEW no good would come of it! All this dabbling in home-grown black holes. It's probably conjured up a clone of some obscure terrorist through a fourth dimensional worm-hole in the space-time continuum, not to mention the side effect of listening to Vogon poetry.

    Beam me up, Scotty.

  4. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Re: money on

    Highly probable.

  5. Robert Hill
    Megaphone

    "Mr. President...

    ...we CANNOT allow a Higg's Bosun Gap!!!"

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Islamic Fundamentalist Strangelets

    This is all part of Al Qaeda's plan to infiltrate the Large Hadron Collider, rig it to produce "strangelets" and then turn the earth and all its inhabitants into Islamicly pure goo!!

    Doubtless the faithful will go straight to heaven and their 72 virgins a pop, while the rest of us are reduced to stuff that looks like milk chocolate pudding.

  7. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

    Higg's Bosun Gap?

    With Captain Kirk, a "Bosun Gap" will not occur, especially if the Boatswain is female.

    Come to think of it, maybe this story is just some 21st-century-style advert action for Dan Brown's latest vehicle?

  8. Prashant Kerai
    Alien

    The real concern is

    ... will Dan Brown incorporate this into his next novel? Now that is truly a frightening spectre.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Good night Vienne

    One could only imagine the clamour, by French ministers and artists/artistes around the globe, for his release. I say "imagine" because it won't happen.

    Please note: this is probably not the internationally famous film director and French national Roman Polanski, (guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, by plea bargain).

    The arrested man has not yet been identified. It is for this reason I reckon it is not Roman Polanski the internationally famous film director and French national (guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, by plea bargain).

    My IT angle? Well, Roman Polanski the internationally famous film director and French national (guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, by plea bargain), was arrested in Switzerland. Switzerland is of course home to the international CERN (home of the 3 W's {Bush excluded})

    My guess is this guy might not be a French national and perhaps not Polish either.

    No further mention of the brothers?

  10. The Flying Dutchman
    Alien

    Re: money on...

    Completely plausible.

    Also, in order to keep the War On Terror Gravy Train going, an excuse is needed every now and then in order to keep Alert Level Orange in force. Since it's really unlikely they'll catch any real terrorists, they'll just have to make something up... Anyone with an Arab-sounding name may be next in line, bonus points if you work in science or engineering, more bonus points of you have a beard...

    Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid...

    By the way, anyone knows what became of those guys who where arrested on terrorism charges in France a while ago - allegedly they planned to sabotage a high speed rail line, and one of the reasons the prosecutors were convinced they were terrorist was that none of them owned or used a mobile phone...?

  11. ZenCoder

    It would be nice if they gave more detail.

    I hope this guy isn't life isn't being ruined because a guy he went to school with was roommates with Bin Laden's driver's favorite barber.

    Even worse ... what if they are telling everything. That is he had links, in the form of browser bookmarks.

  12. Fihart

    So the bearded one watches Channel 5

    Or has read the Robert Sawyer novel which inspired Flash Forward.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Link schmink

    "...arrested on suspicion he had links to an Al Qaeda affiliate..."

    Links? "Links"?? What the hell is a "link"? Anyone who knows about "six degrees of separation" realises that almost anyone in the world can be "linked" to anyone else - if someone with enough money and power wants him to be linked.

    Talking of which, how about the Bush family's much more concrete links to the bin Laden family? Funny how completely uninterested the US "justice" system seems to be in those.

  14. Stone Fox
    FAIL

    methinks

    that Al-Quaida have been watching Angels & Demons and want some antimatter!

  15. Anon the mouse

    change of picture

    how come the picture was changed for the story?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

    ... fook that. How many of us unknowingly have six degrees of separation from Al Qaeda?

  17. Chronos

    Re: money on

    Seconded. My first thought on seeing the headline.

  18. Winkypop Silver badge
    Stop

    The weird religio-tards strike again

    Come on guys, your side lost, OK?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Print off and carry

    Before I can speak to you or be in the immediate vicinity, please answer the following questions:

    1) Do you have, plan to have or have you ever had any association with any terrorist organisation?

    2) Do you have about your person any electronic device that isn't approved and mass-produced? This includes jailbroken iPhones.

    3) Do you have any materials in your possession that could be combined to make explosives? This also includes iPhones, anything with a Li-Ion or Li-Po battery and access to solid surfaces, jailbroken or not. iPods from Liverpool are considered to be surface to air missiles.

    4) Are you a Brazilian electrician?

    5) Do you regularly carry a rucksack?

    6) Have you ever taken the piss out of our Home Secretary on US national television?

    That's it, then. Sorry, you lot. I can't talk to you. Guilt by association, don't you know? Anon, for obvious reasons...

  20. Nebulo

    Money on?

    Given that we know that "Al-Qaeda" is a CIA invention, it's a certainty.

    What self-respecting terrorist, after all, would call his organisation "The Toilet"?

    (www.whatreallyhappened.com/fakealqaeda.html refers)

  21. Sarah Davis
    Coat

    what happens when they find out ...

    that Higgs Boson is a member of Al Qaeda !

    (mines the ones with a small universe in the pocket)

  22. Stoneshop
    Grenade

    I wonder

    why Al Qaeda would concern itself with smashing sub-atomic particles. Until now they seem intent on smashing macroscopic stuff.

  23. Steve 6

    The ultimate suicide bomber?

    "Imagine my heavenly reward if I made a little tweak here and there to create a singularity..."

  24. Annihilator
    Alert

    RE: the real concern is

    "... will Dan Brown incorporate this into his next novel? Now that is truly a frightening spectre."

    No, I'm pretty sure he's already tenuously done that. So on second thoughts, yes he probably will then.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Re: Money on? #

    > Given that we know that "Al-Qaeda" is a CIA invention, it's a certainty.

    As I understand things, for the US to be able to prosecute Osama bin Laden for the bombings of the US embassy in Kenya he had to count as the head of a criminal organisation. You can't get done for something by the US courts if you're not there, unless you are the boss of a organisation.... comes from the law to do with racketeering or whatever was written to fight Al Capone and/or the mob.

    The US needed a name for this organisation, and they used Al Qaeda.

    The source for this is my memory of the Adam Curtis documentary The Power Of Nightmares.

    But "Al Qaeda" is also a very useful device for the press to use to shift papers. Or website impressions. If you take what the press say at face value, it would be expected that you would see Al Qaeda as an organised, hierarchical organisation. Much like a traditional army. But it is not that at all.

    Some modern groups of extremist Islamists label themselves Al Qaeda as a consequence of the western use of the term, but ultimately Al Qaeda is a more of a movement (not bowel) than some structured organisation.

    Al Qaeda is to terrorism what Freecycle is to recycling.

    I know how controversial that sounds, but I think it is quite fair: Freecycle is simply the title given to and claimed by a movement of un-organised, dis-joined people who want to be less wasteful of stuff that could be useful to others.

  26. Jonathan McColl
    Coat

    Misleading headline?

    Not once in the article did you say how large this hadron boffin was. Was it lost in editing?

  27. Graham Marsden
    Coat

    Not really to do with this story...

    ... but in one online discussion I was participating in, someone managed to refer to the device in question as the "Large Hardon Collider"...!

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

    "How many of us unknowingly have six degrees of separation from Al Qaeda?"

    Theoretically, all of us. That's the point.

    Be scared.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Ohh, now we have a guinea pig

    Excellent, place terrorist in tunnel, activate, and lets see what happens.

  30. Greg J Preece

    So he's associated...

    ...with a guy who's associated with a terrorist organisation?

    The bastard! Lock him up!

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Please Arrest Me

    I went to school with someone who now works for the PLO.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    ConCERN

    Has the Vatican released a statement?

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Self Dessication Society

    "Freecycle is simply the title given to and claimed by a movement of un-organised, dis-joined people who want to be less wasteful of stuff that could be useful to others."

    While Al Qaeda is just a movement of unorganised people who want to be disjointed by useful stuff that could waste others.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Re: Please Arrest Me

    Oh no! I posted on the same website as someone who went to school with someone who now works for the PLO!

    Anonymous Coward, for obvious reasons.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Links to Terrorists?

    Ex President Bush's whole family have direct links with the Bin Laden family which in turn financially supported Bin Ladan and still do.

    I bet these guys just gave some money to some random charity that gives money to some part of the world that has terrorist fighters.

    Al Qaeda is just a made up name by the americans, they clearly watch too much BOND, maybe they should have just called then S.P.E.C.T.R.E !

    If you trace anything back far enough you find OIL at the end.

  36. Grease Monkey Silver badge

    Always makes me snigger...

    ...that when these stories first break (usually Sky News or News 24) the suspect is "a member of Al Queda" and by the time it hits print the following day we have something like "possible association with an Al Queda affiliate".

    Every time a bomb goes off it is an "Al Queda" attack, a couple of days later it's been watered down to an "Al Queda inspired attack". Now I'm sure governments would have us believe that these are honest mistakes made by the media or, perhaps in the case of the tabloid press, irresponsible exaggeration. However it wouldn't surprise me if the original information received by the news organisations doesn't come with Al Queda written all over it and then get downgraded later. All in the interests of splashing a little FUD over the news.

  37. The Original Ash
    Grenade

    I'm @AC (Re: Please Arrest Me)

    Oh no! I read a comment written by a person who posted on the same website as someone who went to school with someone who now works for the PLO!

    OH CRAP! I FORGOT TO POST ANONYMOUSLY! *Cowers in terror*

    Oh no! I said terror!

    Agh! I did it again!

    Waaa! I selected the grenade icon!

  38. Steve 40
    Paris Hilton

    "Large Hadron boffin"

    Just how large was the boffin in Reg standard units?

  39. Witty username
    Coat

    @ The Flying Dutchman

    So if not using a mobile is a sure sign of terrorism™, then the fact that i dont use twitter surely me...hold on, someone at the do

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    I think he was working on

    a new type of subatomic particle called the peado that can be used to molest children at the atomic level.

    Those peadophysicists are everywhere.

  41. dunncha
    Black Helicopters

    Power of Nightmares @ Anon Coward

    'The source for this is my memory of the Adam Curtis documentary The Power Of Nightmares.'

    Excellent documentary!

    Would trying to purchase this on DVD expose me to an allegation of subversion.

    Be afraid

  42. Kir'star

    @ Good night Vienne

    Best comment ever. Except for the one about Roman Polanski the internationally famous film director and French national (guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, by plea bargain).

  43. BOBSta
    Boffin

    @Fihart - FlashForward

    I would doubt that - for these reasons :

    a) The novel of FlashForward is currently not available in and has never yet been published in UK - at least according the might of the Waterstones computer system. They (pivately) recommended trying Amazon!

    b) It's on Channel 5.

    Afganistan is hilly and I'm not sure that Amazon deliver there...

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    I just remembered...

    I was at university with four guys from Saddam's air force, and an Iranian (I think he works for NASA now); I must be a terrorist!

    I'm off to turn myself in.

  45. james 68
    Grenade

    oh goodie

    yay for the day when the rozzers come knocking on my door.

    "sir we have reason to believe you are in communication with foreign terrorists"

    'eh?'

    "sir we have evidence of thousands of emails from well known nigerian terrorist finaciers which you contrived to hide in your spam box to discourage investigation"

    'you mean spam?'

    "come with us please sir, you have no rights to silence, legal representation...blah blah"

    best delete all those "grow your penis now" and "if you send me £x ill pay you £million when i get it from wherever" spam mails, wouldnt want them to be considered links to terrorism now would you?

  46. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Interesting - how likely is it

    that they will "find" that the He leak was a result of an act of sabotage and that the guy they "caught" was responsible?

    After all you cannot expect any respectable head of engineering dept or, god forbid, any multinational construction company to be held accountable for the hundreds of millions of EUR spent on fixing the consequences of a faulty relay (or whatever it was that caused the leak), can you?

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    RE: Print of and carry

    From reading your questions it appears you have also applied for a Visa to America.

    Question no.1 was actually on the application form, although you forgot the question about whether you are a pimp or drug dealer (yes or no question).

    Anon, cause I've been through a US airport twice so I'm already on their watch list.

    A lesson for you kids, don't drive with no insurance and get done for it when your a teenager as you'll be labelled a terrorist when your older.

  48. Nazar
    FAIL

    Space and Time

    Tag: Flashforward (not the fraked up tv series, which took a good book and ballsed it up beyond recognition).

  49. Ben Holmes

    Re: Please arrest me @22:30 and @23:36

    I can top both of you. I work for the Royal Mail, arguably the largest terrorist threat this country has ever encountered.

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If this annoys you, you might like...

    ... to read "Newspeak in the 21st Century" by David Edwards and David Cromwell (of Media Lens).

    http://tinyurl.com/yfwmpbu

    It's a well-written, fact-filled and convincingly argued book by two guys who have dedicated themselves to uncovering systematic bias in the Western media. It turns out there's far more of it than I had suspected - and I've become fairly cynical about the media of late.

    The neatest aspect of their analysis is that they conclude there usually isn't a big conspiracy to hush up unwelcome facts. Instead, individual journalists read the signs and do what they think is best for their own career prospects.

  51. Bogwater Tombola
    Boffin

    Gainfully employed, at last

    Go easy on the poor guy. His day job is smashing Hadrons together in the hope of finding Higgs' missing Boson. He probably just took a night job as a suicide bomber so his Mum could tell her friends he has a job with good prospects.

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing new

    When I was at college back in the mid eighties a couple of guys at the college were arrested and deported because of their alleged links with terrorist organisations. Didn't get as much media attention back then though.

    The difference was IIRC these guys were Iranian. The current Iranian regime have never AFAIK received funding from the US government. Unlike Bin Laden, Saddam or the Taliban. So that's alright then.

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Six degrees of Kevin Bacon

    "How many of us unknowingly have six degrees of separation from Al Qaeda?"

    When the government's IMP internet surveillance project is fully on stream everyone and their granny will be flagged up as 'terrists'. Guilt by association will be the only standard of proof required and the death sentence will be mandatory. Naturally, 'Honourable Members' and their corporate buddies will get a free pass.

    But not to worry, the security services will be too busy wading through the millions of false positives that occur to annoy the rest of us. And presumably they wont have much time to chase down the real threats to our country either. New Labour, same old shit.

  54. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
    Big Brother

    It's worse than that (Jim...)

    "...best delete all those "grow your penis now" and "if you send me £x ill pay you £million when i get it from wherever" spam mails, wouldnt want them to be considered links to terrorism now would you?.."

    James 68

    What! Delete them and be found guilty of hiding evidence, perverting the course of justice, etc, ect?

    Only MPs and the police can hide evidence and get away with it...

  55. Grease Monkey Silver badge
    Coat

    If it's the CIA...

    ...then it's just that he once went on his holidays to north Africa. If only they could tell the difference between terrorist links and tourist links.

    It's the one with the Merkin-English dicitionary in the pocket.

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