THE former wife of terror suspect Willie Brigitte believes her religion comes first and Australia second.

Speaking on the Nine Network’s Sunday program, Australian Melanie Brown says she is a Muslim first and foremost.

She says that as a Muslim she did not support a terrorist attack on Australia, but is more ambivalent about attacks overseas.

“Who says it’s a terrorist attack?” she says. “That’s a hard question to answer. There is a fight on overseas and it’s hard to come up with a clear understanding of what’s going on.”

Ms Brown met and married Brigitte in 2003 while he was visiting Australia. He was suspected of planning to bomb Australia’s electricity grid and is reported to have questioned his wife about high-security military installations such as Pine Gap.

Ms Brown, formerly employed by the Australian army as an electronic warfare specialist, told authorities her husband had regularly grilled her about military intelligence.

Two months after they married, Brigitte was arrested and then deported on visa irregularities. He is now in a Paris jail while being tried for terrorist- related charges.

The Australian first broke the news of Ms Brown’s marriage to Brigitte, and later revealed the devout Muslim was studying to be a teacher at Sydney University and had taken to playing women’s cricket wearing a hijab.

When Ms Brown travelled to Paris to visit her husband in 2004, she was jailed and interrogated by French intelligence officers. She was released after several days, but not before telling them that Brigitte had acted suspiciously during their time together in Sydney. She later recanted, complaining of undue pressure.

She tells the Sunday program she now regrets co-operating with ASIO and the French authorities. She says she wishes she had remained silent. “If you marry someone you have loyalty to them,” she says.