Airport witness taken into custody in Paris

A retired French soldier whose tip led police to a cache of guns and explosives in a car outside a Paris airport has been taken into custody.

The man alerted authorities this weekend after he spotted a baggage handler holding a gun in the car park at Charles de Gaulle airport.

Taking the witness into custody was an unusual step, and it appeared the police wanted to question him further about what he saw.

The airport employee, 27-year-old Abdrazak Besseghir, has been in custody since his arrest on Saturday. The witness said he saw Besseghir standing by the boot of his car with a weapon.

In the car, police found an automatic handgun, a machine gun, five bars of plastic explosives and two detonators, officials said. The explosive devices were ready to be ignited.

They also found radical Islamic and pro-Palestinian documents as well as information about pilots’ uniforms, police said.

Besseghir, who is French of Algerian origin, has no known ties to radical Islamic groups and no previous record apart from a vandalism incident in 1997, police said.

Under questioning, Besseghir said he suspected “a plot” against him and refused to explain the presence of weapons in his car, said an official close to the investigation. Besseghir can be held up to four days without being placed under investigation or formally charged.

As a baggage handler, Besseghir has security clearance for several restricted areas of Charles de Gaulle airport, one of Europe’s busiest. The airport handles 1,200 flights a day.

On alert for possible terror strikes during the holiday season, France has stationed more police in department stores, train stations and airports. At Charles de Gaulle, officials have installed new explosives-detecting machines and brought in bomb-sniffing dogs.