our police is looking for this guy Frederic Jean Salvi
The ABC has obtained new details about a French connection in the alleged terrorism plot involving radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.
When counter-terrorism police arrested a chemical engineering graduate with a stockpile of high explosives, and another group of men with a Mitsubishi Gallant car they proudly announced they had thwarted a car-bombing cell.
The discovery last weekend was sensational enough even before it was linked to Bashir.
But there was also a French connection - details of another mystery man involved with the cell made it all the more intriguing.
All police would say at the time was that the car had been provided to the cell by a French national with a Moroccan wife.
There was no word on whether the anonymous Frenchman knew he was connected to a terrorist plot, but more details are now emerging.
Indonesian officials say the French government has told them the man has a history of radical activism in France.
Ansyaad Mbai, the head of the counter-terrorism desk at Indonesia's security ministry, says the man's name is Frederic C Jean Salvi, born in Pontarlier, a French city, in 1979.
"We received information from our partner in France that Frederic Salvi, alias Ali, is a radical activist in France," he said.
"Of course we consider this matter as significantly serious and we'll work on it together with the French government."
French radicals have, in the past, been connected to terrorist networks in locations as diverse as Algeria and Pakistan - the best known in Australia would be Willie Brigitte.
At this point the French claims are just intelligence, untested by any contact with Mr Salvi.
However, the head of the religious college at Bandung in West Java, where the Frenchman studied, says he knew him for almost a year.
College secretary Ace Ahmad Jalaludin says the Frenchman was not considered a radical.
The Indonesian authorities are not sure of Mr Salvi's ethnicity or appearance, but Mr Ace says he was light-skinned and had light-skinned friends.
Mr Ace says he converted to Islam three years ago and studied in Egypt before coming to Indonesia. He says spoke Arabic and could understand some of the verses in the Koran.
Indonesian officials have issued a travel ban and they are in touch with Interpol.
But just as this Frenchman mysteriously entered Bandung, he left again, about a month ago as the police operation against the terrorist cell was gathering pace.
Mr Ace believes he is now in Morocco. (ABC/Matt Brown)
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