A Paris court sentenced a Franco-Algerian nuclear physicist to four years in jail yesterday after he was convicted of plotting with Al-Qaeda’s North African branch to carry out terror attacks.

Police arrested Adlene Hicheur, a researcher studying the Big Bang at the birth of the universe at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern), in October 2009 after intercepting e-mails to an alleged contact in Al-Qaeda.

Mr Hicheur, 35, who has been behind bars since his arrest, admitted at the start of his trial in late March that he was going through a “turbulent” time when he wrote the emails, but denied he intended to carry out any attacks.

His father embraced him in the courtroom before he was taken off to serve his term.

His lawyer said the verdict was “a legal scandal” because his client had been convicted merely on “words exchanged on the internet”.

Mr Hicheur’s trial on a charge of “criminal association as part of a terrorist enterprise”, began a week after police shot dead the Franco-Algerian gunman Mohamed Merah, who killed seven people in and around the city of Toulouse.

When Mr Hicheur was arrested at his parents’ home near Cern, the research institute that lies on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, police discovered a trove of Al-Qaeda and militant Islamist literature.

France’s DCRI domestic intelligence agency’s suspicions had been raised after a statement from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was sent to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Elysée Palace in early 2008.

Following the message, police carried out surveillance on several e-mail accounts including Mr Hicheur’s and his exchanges with Mustapha Debchi, an alleged AQIM representative.