The Large Hadron Collider, which some fear could create a black hole to swallow the earth, was being controlled by a bloke with links to al-Qaeda.

Coppers have apparently arrested a French physicist arrested after he had a series of emails with North Africa's al-Qaeda branch. The emails discussed plans for terror attacks, but nothing concrete was planned.

The 32-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin was one of more than 7000 boffins working on the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The emails were picked up by US spooks monitoring the militant group, known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the judicial official said.

The North African group regularly targets government and security forces in Algeria, and occasionally attacks foreigners. Although he was involved in the Large Haldron project he apparently did nothing that could be used for terrorism.