Computer discs which contained information relating to al-Qaeda and a terrorist training manual were found during a police search of a house in Newtownards, the High Court in Belfast heard yesterday.
Algerian-born Mr Abbas Boutrab, aged 25, was taken from the house to Magahaberry prison as an illegal immigrant in April, and was rearrested on terrorist-related offences on Monday, the court was told.
The PSNI was granted a further 72 hours to question him by a county court judge at Craigavon on Wednesday. Yesterday lawyers for Mr Boutrab successfully applied for a judicial review of a police decision not to allow him to have his chosen interpreter present alongside another interpreter during police interviews.
Mr Neil Farrell, for Mr Boutrab, said the translator provided by the police, who was flown over from London, was said to have provided the meaning of questions to the suspect, rather than literal translations.
Some of this concerned evidence in documents found in the house in Newtownards concerning bomb-making equipment and a silencer for a gun, he said. But Mr Paul Maguire, for the PSNI, contended that this interpreter spoke the same Algerian-French dialect as Mr Boutrab, and that there had been no complaint about the service until yesterday evening.
He said the allegations against Mr Boutrab were very serious. Referring to the search of the Newtownards house in April he said: "Hundreds of files on computer discs were involved containing thousands of pages of Arabic script.
"These appeared to relate to al-Qaeda terrorism and appeared to be something in the nature of a terrorist training manual."
The police had "considerable reservations" about allowing another person to sit in on interviews of a confidential nature, said Mr Maguire. Information from the interviews could be released to other people, he said.
Mr Justice Kerr said he would allow Mr Boutrab to apply for a judicial review of the police decision to refuse a second interpreter to be present during police interviews, but he refused a request by Mr Farrell that interviews be suspended until the court reconvenes today.