Italian anti-terrorism police said Tuesday that two French citizens jailed in southern Italy since last year on suspicion of immigration offenses are important propaganda point-men in Europe for al-Qaida, AP reported.
News reports said the pair might have been planning attacks in at a Paris airport and in Britain, but police said there was no evidence supporting a concrete plan of attack.
Italian police said the two men were served warrants on Tuesday accusing them of criminal association for international terrorism. The men have been held in Bari since November when they were arrested on suspicion of aiding illegal immigration, police said.
"These two are top-level point-men on the ideological level" for propaganda for al-Qaida in Europe, anti-terrorism police official Claudio Galzerano said in a telephone interview.
The Italian news agency ANSA said the alleged plans involved Charles De Gaulle airport outside Paris, and state radio said other alleged planning involved targets in Britain. It was not clear where the news outlets got their information.
Galzerano said investigations have indicated that risk of such an attack by these two men "is practically nothing."
The initial concern over possible planning for terrorist attacks was based on "excerpts of intercepted telephone conversation, and very fragmentary" phrases, said Galzerano, from the national UCIGOS anti-terrorism police squad.
But "nothing has been found" to back up any concrete plan of an attack, he told The AP.
Earlier, Galzerano told state TV radio the two were suspected of recruiting militants for al-Qaida in Afghanistan and spreading terrorism propaganda.
Authorities scheduled a news conference for later Tuesday in Bari.
Police said the two men were longtime residents of Belgium.
ANSA reported that Belgian intelligence authorities had tipped Italy that the men were suspected of planning terrorism, ANSA said.
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