Hadron Collider Physicist Admits He Was Al-Qaeda Mole

A top-level nuclear physicist working on the Hadron Collider has admitted being an Al-Qaeda spy, French officials are reporting. Adlène Hicheur, 32, is expected to be charged today after investigators discovered he suggested targets to the terror organization, reports the Independent. French officials believe the Stanford University Ph.D. was being groomed to become the "pivot" of a terror campaign starting in France but possibly spreading to other European nations.

Hicheur, born to Algerian parents in France, has worked in Britain and the US. Officials moved on him in recent days as they became convinced he was about to mount an attack. Investigators do not believe his work at the Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border, the world's largest particle accelerator, was part of his terror planning.
(More Large Hadron Collider stories.)