Charges that a nuclear scientist arrested in France last week had links with Al-Qaeda are "completely false," his brother has told a scientific journal.
French magistrates on Monday charged Adlene Hicheur, a 32-year-old researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPLF) in Lausanne, Switzerland, with "membership of a terrorist group."
Investigators monitored Internet messages between the scientist and a north African off-shoot of Al Qaeda, French officials said.
Halim Hicheur, 30, said his brother frequently sent emails to people in Algeria, but said there had been no correspondence with the terrorist group.
