by SHOBHAN SAXEN & FLORENCIA COSTA
Adlène Hicheur during his CERN days PHOTO/Adlène Hicheur
A brilliant scientist from CERN, accused of association with a terrorist group in 2009 and jailed in France before being freed, tells his story as he is hounded out of Brazil where he has lived since May 2013
Adlène Hicheur can still manage a smile behind his short beard that covers his sunken cheeks. With a bag in his left hand, he walks into the room and parks himself on a sofa. Then he begins to talk. In the middle of a sentence on Islamophobia, he slips his hand into the bag and takes out two books. “People should know their history. I read this book when I was in prison. I am reading it again,” says the physicist, holding up a copy of Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano. It’s not a new copy; the cover has a yellow tinge to it and an old bill is placed like a bookmark between two pages. “We need to know the alternatives,” he says, picking the other book, The Other Globalization by Brazilian theorist Milton Santos. “Not many people outside Latin America are aware of this work. I love Santos’s ideas for a new interpretation of the contemporary world,” he says, putting his hand in the bag again and producing two books on ecology and sustainable development. “I love reading about environmental issues,” Hicheur declares, sipping tea from a cup. “I like tea. I don’t need coffee. I am already quite agitated.” His eyes crinkle with warm humour.
Hicheur, 39, doesn’t need a trigger to start a conversation. It seems a dozen ideas are buzzing in his mind. He traverses from particle physics – his area of specialisation – to politics, Arabian history, algebra, Batman and Mumbai in a matter of minutes as sentences roll down his tongue in perfect English, French and Portuguese, with a sprinkling of Arabic. He takes a break only to wipe off the beads of sweat on his forehead or to adjust the spectacles on his nose as he turns new sentences in his head.
Then, as the conversation turns to his current status, he sinks deeper and deeper into the sofa; his shoulders droop and he falls silent – for a few seconds. “There is a churning in my stomach – a feeling of emptiness. I feel as if I am being hollowed out from inside,” says Hicheur, furrowing his bushy eyebrows. “I have decided to leave Brazil. I don’t know where I am going next and when but I am leaving.”
Adlène Hicheur is not leaving Brazil of his own will. The scientist, and his colleagues and supporters, believe he is being hounded out. His current and former bosses believe the scientist is being held guilty a second time around for something that ought to have been a closed chapter.
Though Hicheur protects his privacy fiercely, his life – and past – is not a secret. In 2009, while working at the world famous European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN), he was arrested by the French police and charged with “criminal association with a terrorist group” (Al Qaeda in Maghreb). He spent 30 months in jail. It’s also public knowledge that he was tried for “associating” with an Al Qaeda man in Algeria through emails and web chats for “attacks in France”. Hicheur’s response is well known too: his participation in chats covered many international issues and he never planned any terrorist attack.
It’s also not a secret that in May 2012, after 949 days in prison, Hicheur was released. He left France a year later. Since then, based in Rio, he has been putting his life – as a teacher and researcher – back on track, making a break with the “terrorist” tag that haunted him for three years. “I have been able to teach physics at the Federal University of Rio (UFRJ), do research and write papers for CERN. It was all going very well. This is what I like to do and here I got the space to do it,” says Hicheur.
He believes he was at the right place. But, probably, at the wrong time.
Recycling the past
On January 11, in the middle of bickering between political parties in Brazil over a proposed anti-terror law, the magazine Epoca put Hicheur on its cover, with its headline leaving little to imagination. Titled “A terrorist in Brazil”, the report claimed that there was a “secret” in the CV of the scientist who has “received a scholarship from the government and teaches in a public university”. The report, besides rehashing details of the 2009 case – widely reported in the western media seven years ago – claimed that the French-Algerian scientist was being investigated by the Brazilian Federal Police (PF). His full-page photo was stamped with the headline in red. The magazine conveyed a clear message: Brazil has a terror threat.
“There is no secret in my CV. I came here on a valid visa, invited by the university. My case is well known and it’s over. I am a scientist but they branded me a terrorist by recycling an old story,” Hicheur tells The Wire, with a mix of sadness and anger. “I told them to leave me alone, but they didn’t.”
But it was only the beginning of a nightmare. Like a recurring bad dream, an old episode of his life is back to haunt him.
The Wire for more
via Z Net