Italy has officially charged two detainees of being leaders of a logistical support team for the Islamic terrorist group al Qaeda.
The two are 63-year-old Syrian Bassam Ayachi, a French citizen and one-time imam in Belgium, and 34-year-old Frenchman and Muslim convert Raphael Marcel Frederic Gendron.
According to investigators, the two were part of a cell which was planning terrorist attacks in Britain and France, including a bombing at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris.
Ayachi and Gendron were arrested here last November 11 on charges of organising illegal immigration after a group of immigrants were discovered hidden in their camper.
Investigations, however, indicated that they were much more than just common human traffickers and were, in reality, involved in recruiting Muslim combatants and suicide bombers.
''With today's arrests we have perhaps avoided something far more serious because these two individuals were part of a vast organization,'' Bari Police chief Giorgio Manari said in a press conference on Tuesday.
According to Manari, Ayachi and Gendron are ''key figures in al Qaeda's European organization''.
Police said evidence found in six computer pen drives belonging to the two included fundamentalist propaganda which linked them to the Global Islamic Media Front, considered to be an arm of al Qaeda.
Files and DVDs seized by investigators included training and recruiting manuals and evaluations of messages and sermons sent by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his right hand al Zarqawi.
Wire-tap evidence gather in Bari prison revealed that Ayachi and Gendron were plotting terrorist activities including an attack on De Gaulle airport.
According to the Bari police chief, the wire tap evidence allowed investigators to ''nip the plot in the bud''.
Also on on the computer file was a 'testament' of a suspected terrorist arrested in Brussels in December in which he announced his intention of sacrificing his life in support of his 'Muslim brothers'.
Ayachi and Gendron are believed to be part of a European cell made up of some 50 people, some of whom were arrested in Belgium last December.
In Belgium Ayachi had been the leader and spiritual guide of the Belgium Islamic Center Assabyle (CIBA) known for its extremist leanings.
One of his sons, Abdel Rahman Ayachi, was convicted by an appeals court in Brussels in January for posting anti-Semite, xenophobic and racist videos on the website www.assabyle.com.
Belgium authorities suspended the website in 2004 but it has reappeared as the Pakistan-registered site www.ribaat.org and continues to post radical Islamic propaganda.
Ayachi's son was originally arrested in 2004 together with Gendron.
Gendron, a trained engineer, was a co-founder of CIBA and evidence indicates that he is administrator of www.ribaat.org and other websites promoting radical Islamic causes.
