Jean-Luis Bruguire: The Tough Anti-Terror Judge of France
April 6th, 2007
By D.B.S. Jeyaraj
Jean Luis Bruguire is perhaps the most feared anti – terror judge in France. He is from a family that has had judges for eleven generations. After a hectic 30 year career in fighting terror Bruguire is expected to retire this may. He will then embark on a political career by contesting elections to the legislature in June. The recent crackdown on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in France was reportedly co-ordinated by him and will be most probably the swansong of this famously controversial jurist.
Bruguire was in Sri Lanka for a week in 2003. He conducted a study into the activities of the LTTE then. He also visited Dalada Maligawa . Among those he met in Colombo was CR (Bulla)de Silva the Solicitor – General who will soon become Attorney – General. While in Sri Lanka Bruguire also delivered a lecture to a select audience at o Sri Lanka Institute of International Relations (SLIIR) on the theme “International Counter Terrorism Co – operation – The French Experience”.
Bruguire’s address on that occasion revealed that he had a firm grasp of what the LTTE was doing in France. Senior journalist Iqbal Athas writing in the “Sunday Times” presented relevant excerpts from Bruguire’s talk. They are re- produced below -
“The LTTE controls the immigrant Tamil community in France and is involved, under cover of legal associations and organisations, in underworld activities for the guerrilla warfare in Sri Lanka.
“The Tamil community in France has been estimated to 60,000 people, which is constantly on the increase. The LTTE has a very strong hold over this community which is mainly gathered near the Gare du Nord in Paris in an area nicknamed “Little Jaffna.”
“Moreover, following the decision taken by the British government at the beginning of the month of March in 2001, to include the Tamil movement of the LTTE in its list of terrorist organisations whose activities were from then onwards banned in Great Britain, the International Secretariat of the LTTE movement was shifted from London to Paris. Hence, the entire political and operational activities of the LTTE in Europe has its base in France. Henceforth, all propaganda and financial operations aimed at the Tamil community in Europe, are going to be launched from Paris.
“Velummylum MANOHARAN or Mano, successor of John Christian Chrysostom, (Note: He is also known as Lawrence Thilakar), officially in charge of the Tamil Co-ordination Committee in France, co-ordinates in the operational activities of the movement, with a small group of experienced activists well versed in the techniques of the underworld.
“Every year, the LTTE becomes engaged in four types of funds which contributes four million dollars to the movement. Besides this fund, LTTE militants also seem to be involved in a number of illegal activities in the fields of illegal immigration, tax evasion and specially in the hacking of long distance calls and even drug trafficking. It seems that a large part of these funds were extortions. But in the absence of denunciations, it has not been possible to prove that these funds have been obtained forcefully.
“Velummylum MANOHARAN, the international General Secretary of the organisation was condemned in 1987 to three years imprisonment for drug trafficking. He has since been under house arrest in the region of Paris.
“In spite of all this, no activity earmarked as terrorism has been detected, in particular in the fields of looking for and purchasing weapons or military equipment in France.
“Similarly, in spite of the information which appeared in the Indian Press, no operational links has been established with Al Qaida organisation of bin Laden.
“Moreover, the French anti-terrorist judicial pool with which I co-ordinate, has already co-operated with the judicial authorities in Colombo within the framework of investigations on the terrorist activities of the LTTE. In future too we will continue to co-operate with the same diligent application in order not to allow the LTTE to use France as a support base for its terrorist operations carried out in Sri Lanka.”
France and Sri Lanka, Mr. Bruguiere noted, were linked to historical, geographical and specific political factors and continue to fight threats against the security of persons and goods, threats against individual and common freedom, threats against democratic structures and socio- economic balances, threats against peace.
Iqbal Athas also noted then that “The Bruguiere visit to Colombo has led to the further strengthening of co-operation between Sri Lanka and France in countering terrorism”. Athas also reproduced extracts from an interview given by Bruguire to the Associated Press. Here are some Excerpts:
“Borders are seemingly no obstacle for Bruguiere, who travels the globe in pursuit of suspects and was once dropped into the African desert to examine the wreckage of a French jet believed bombed by the Libyans. The 58 year old investigative magistrate’s methods have earned him both adulation from colleagues in counter terrorism and criticism from civil rights groups.
“Since September 11, the United States and Europe have been toughening their anti-terrorism laws. That’s nothing new for Bruguiere, who argues that being tough is the best deterrent.
“For many in his field, Bruguiere is legendary. ‘There’s just nobody like this guy,’ enthused Larry Johnson, a former deputy chief of counter terrorism at the State Department. Closer to home, some worry that methods employed by Bruguiere and his team of three other judges could lead to civil rights violations.
” Jean-Pierre Dubois of the French Human Rights League criticised the method of large-scale sweeps used by Bruguiere. Under French law, terror suspects can be hauled in for four days of questioning without a lawyer. Once charged, they can be held as long as four years before trial.
“They arrest a large number of people hoping they might catch 20 or 30 interesting suspects,” Dubois said. They just accept that there will be lots of undue imprisonment. That’s not very democratic.
“Bruguiere responds that his critics ‘don’t understand the threat.’ Fighting terrorism is a ’special kind of war,’ demanding special tools , he says. Sweeps that bring in dozens of people for minor offences, such as producing false passports, root out the real terror plots, he adds. Those who provide logistic support to terrorists are prosecuted under the broadly worded charge of ‘criminal association relating to a terrorist enterprise.’
“That’s how the plot to bomb the last World Cup was thwarted – in co-ordinated arrests of 150 people in several countries a month before the tournament.
“And that’s also how French officials came to know of Ahmed Ressam three years before he was arrested for trying to enter the United States from Canada with a trunk load of explosives. Through previous sweeps, Bruguiere had collected enough information on Ressam that he was called to testify at the Algerian’s Los Angeles trial, where he was convicted of terrorism charges.
“Investigating someone for a small offence can lead to big results,” Bruguiere says. Frank Spica, head of the terrorism division at Interpol called Bruguiere a ‘ball of fire. If we had more judges like him, I guarantee you it would be a step up in fighting terrorism.’
“The Judge says he spends 15 to 17 hours a day in his office, where he keeps stacks of files on suspects he’s interrogated – some 400 people in the last seven years, he estimates. He consults with Police and intelligence services ‘five or six times a day’ and normally works weekends. When he has the time, he pilots a plane.
“One reason he cites for his effectiveness: there’s only one Bruguiere. Unlike in the United States, where counter terrorism work is spread out among various agencies and officials, in France, it is basically the work of Bruguiere and his three colleagues. ‘A war needs one commander and not ten,’ he says. ‘I don’t need permission from anyone.’
A short biographical sketch of Bruguire from Wikipedia is reproduced below -
Jean-Louis Bruguière is the leading French Investigating magistrate in charge of counter – terrorism affairs. He was appointed in 2004 vice-president of the Paris Court of Serious Claims.. He is somehow controversed for various actions, including the astounding indictment of Paul Kagame , President of Rwanda, for the alleged assassination in 1994 of Juvenal Habriyamana. Washington Post journalist Dana Priest has cited him as saying that he had in the past ordered the arrest of more than 500 suspects, some with the assistance of US authorities.According to the investigative reporter, who described the workings of Alliance Base , a CTIC joint counter-terrorist operations center, involving the DGSE the CIA and other foreign intelligence agencies, Bruguière once declared that “[he had] good connections with the CIA and FBI.
The latest in a long line of magistrates (eleven generations), Bruguière studied at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and took part in the May 1968 protests. He continued his education at the Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature . Appointed to Evreux he made himself known through an affair involving illegal vehicle registration cards by naming the police director as the culprit. Appointed to Paris in 1976 , he began an attack on local pimps, eventually having to work under police protection.
Following street gunfire in 1982 , Bruguière turned himself towards anti-terrorism, expanding his network and targeting in particular the far – left group Action Directe . In 1986 an anti-terrorism division was formed in Paris. A year later his apartment was targeted in a grenade attack; Bruguière, however, continued his fight. In 1994 , he tracked down and captured one of the world’s most wanted terrorists Carlos the Jackal..
Possibly his biggest case (in terms of number of people involved) was that of UT – 772 in which six Libyans were successfully prosecuted in 1999 for the destruction of a French aircraft in 1989 .
Bruguière counselled Italian senator Paolo Guzzanti (Forza Italia ), in charge of the controversed Mitrokhin Commission, endorsing the old thesis, once supported by the CIA, according to which the Soviet Union was behind Mehmet Ali Agca’s 1981 assassination attempt on POpe John Paul II. The Mitrokhin Commission has been discredited following a manipulation by a network to defame Prime minister Romano Prodi and other political opponents of Berlusconi, by claiming they worked for the KGB . The network included Mario Scaramella , arrested in December 2006, the head of SISMI Nicolo Pollari , NO 2 of SISMI Marco Mancini , as well as Robert Seldon Lady , CIA station chief in Milan, also indicted in the Imam Rapito affair.
His controversial report into the April 1994 assassination of then Rwandan President, JUvenal Habmariyana and his counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi , was made public on November 17 2006 Brugière has indicted Paul Kagame , current President of Rwanda and leader of the FPR , claiming that he deliberately assassinated Habyarimana in order to provoke the genocide against his own ethnic group, in order to cynically take power. Bruguière’s thesis has been very controversial , and criticized by Le Figaro , Liberation and others newspapers. His investigations were based on two oral sources, The Figaro, who points the international dimension of the character and his contacts with intelligence agents, both in Russia and in the United States, cited justice colleagues of Bruguière, who criticize him for “favorizing state reason over the law.”
The controversial Bruguire is planning to retire in May this year and contest elections to the legislature in June.Gregory Viscusi of “Bloomberg” interviewed Bruguire at Villeneuve-sur-Lot and wrote a well – rounded piece on March 16th. This insightful piece is re- produced below -
Bruguiere, French Terrorism Judge, Runs for Assembly.
By Gregory Viscusi
March 16 (Bloomberg) — Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who in a 30- year career tackled terrorism in France and abroad, will retire this year as France’s leading anti-terrorist magistrate and run for parliament in June’s election.
Bruguiere, 63, will run for the ruling Union for a Popular Movement, the party of Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy, the favorite to win the presidential election a month earlier.
“I want to serve this region with energy and effort equal to what I’ve put into my other engagements,” Bruguiere said at a press conference in the southern French town of Villeneuve-sur- Lot, the center of the constituency he’ll run in.
His candidacy will bring to an end a career in which he took on Libyan agents, French anarchists, Algerian Islamists and, most recently, home-grown Islamic terrorists, while at the same time being a public voice warning of the dangers posed by Islamic terrorist groups, even well before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S.
“He has a stellar reputation as the first among equals as an anti-terrorist investigator,” said Kenneth Wainstein, the U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security. “He’s a real pioneer with more experience than anyone else.”
Bruguiere, as head of France’s central pool of anti- terrorist investigative magistrates, is best known for tracking down Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, to Sudan and bringing him in 1994 to France, where he was tried and sentenced to life for killing two French agents and an informer in 1975.
Libyan Agents
Bruguiere also pursued Libyan agents for the 1989 downing of a French airliner over the Sahara, trying them in absentia, and then winning compensation from the Libyan government in a 2004 settlement.
In June’s elections, Bruguiere will be running against the Socialist mayor of the town, 55-year old surgeon Jerome Cahuzac. The seat’s currently held by a UMP deputy, Alain Merly, who is returning to private business.
France’s presidential election is in two rounds on April 22 and May 6, with legislative elections following on June 10th and 17th. Bruguiere said he’ll resign as a judge in May.
Cahuzac called Bruguiere “egocentric” and questioned if he had the experience to deal with the region’s problems, which have more to do with inadequate transportation links and international competition for its prunes than with international terrorism.
“I don’t contest his supposed competence in combating terrorism,” Cahuzac said at a press conference. “But it’s hard to see what it has to do with this region.”
Public Service
Bruguiere responded that “my passion is public service, be it local or national,” and “there is direct link between local, national and international issues.”
Bruguiere’s ancestors have been judges for 11 generations, stretching back to Louis XIII at the start of the 17th century.
Bruguiere said he’s broken up at least one Islamic terrorist attack every year, including against the 1998 World Cup, the Christmas market in Strasbourg in 2000, and against American interests in Paris in 2001, and Paris airports and metro stations in 2005 and 2006.
The last major terrorist attack in France was in 1996 when activists linked to the Islamic insurgency in Algeria put off bombs in metro stations to protest the French government’s support for Algeria’s military government. Two men were sentenced to life in prison for the attacks in 2002 and the alleged paymaster was extradited from Britain last year and will face trial.
Algerian Islamic Guerillas
In recent years, Bruguiere has warned that a hard core group of Algeria’s Islamic guerrillas, who refused the Algerian government’s amnesty offers, are unifying with al-Qaeda linked groups in neighboring Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya and could strike in Europe.
The U.S.’s Wainstein says Bruguiere cooperates closely with colleagues in other countries. “He understands that combating international terrorism requires international cooperation,” Wainstein said in an interview. “When he thinks we need to know something, he just picks up the phone and reels us right in.”
Bruguiere has drawn criticism for speaking too much to the media, traveling too much outside of France to discuss his work, and for exaggerating the importance of some of his cases.
“The hyper media attention has given him a reputation that’s maybe a little overblown,” says Eric Denece, director and founder of the French Center of Intelligence Research, a Paris- based consultant. “There are other specialists who don’t speak so much.”
Wide Powers
Judith Sunderland, a Milan-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, says the French legal system gives wide powers to judges such as Bruguiere. “No one doubts Bruguiere’s skill and intelligence, but he’s also seen as ambitious and overly zealous,” Sunderland says. “He’s seen as taking advantage of all discretionary powers the French system allows him.”
Bruguiere’s first major case when he moved to Paris in 1976 after a stint in a provincial town was breaking up a prostitution ring. He turned to terrorist cases in 1982 after a machine gun attack on a Jewish restaurant killed six people. At the start, his cases were mixed between homegrown anarchists and groups with Middle Eastern links.
Frustrated by the inability to track down the perpetuators of a series of attacks in early the 1980s, and what it saw as the government’s hesitancy to track down the perpetuators because of their links to Middle Eastern states, the French Justice System in 1986 grouped its anti-terrorist judges into a single Paris office and gave them greater access to police intelligence files.
Car Bomb
The turning point was a car bomb outside an Arab language newspaper in Paris that killed one person and wounded six in 1982, says Alain Marsaud, who became the first head of the new centralized unit.
“It was ordered by Syria but the politicians didn’t want to know,” said Marsaud, who is now a UMP deputy. “We said we never wanted to see that again.”
Bruguiere became head of the anti-terrorist pool in 1995. His team receive intelligence directly from the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance, or DST, the Interior Ministry’s domestic intelligence arm, and the Renseignements Generaux, or RG, the police intelligence service. They can then order the police to put people under surveillance or bring them in for questioning.
“Bruguiere has operated under emergency laws in France, coupled with major legal advantages unimaginable in the U.S., which have given him a leg up over his U.S. opposite numbers,” says Arnaud de Borchgrave, head of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
It is against this backdrop of the controversies surrounding Bruguire that the recent crackdown on the LTTE in Paris has to be viewed. Sweeping arrests have been made and preliminary charges have been filed. The final outcome cannot be predicted but the coming weeks will certainly prove to be controversial as Jean – Luis Bruguire makes the transition from judicial activism into politics.
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