PARIS, June 8: French police say they have come up with a big fish with the arrest in Paris on May 4 of a Franco-Algerian Islamic extremist.

Police sources say that the individual, whose name has not yet been made public, appears to be a lieutenant of Zaccarias Moussaoui, the “20th man” of Sept 11’s suicide attacks on the United States, who will himself go to trial in the state of Virginia next Fall for his role in the preparation of the attack.

French police say they suspect the individual who was arrested last Tuesday “has known Zaccarias Moussaoui for several years” and was “possibly familiar with the preparation of the attack on the United States.” The police sources say the arrested individual, indeed, “was probably a lieutenant” of Moussaoui and “undoubtedly played a more important role” in the French Al Qaeda movement than he so far has admitted.

The suspected terrorist, who, the police say is of Algerian origin but holds a French passport, was to be handed over for interrogation on Saturday (June 8) to a French magistrate, Judge Jean-Francois Ricard, who is investigating the role played by several French Al Qaeda members in the preparation of a terrorist attack on the city of Strasbourg that was to have occurred at Christmastime in 2000.

At that time, in an attack that never went off, Al Qaeda had projected bombing the city’s popular Christmas market, which at that time of year is packed with thousands of holiday shoppers. According to a previous report that proved to be unfounded, the Al Qaeda terrorists were said to be preparing an attack on Strasbourg Cathedral.