Black Saturday 'was Allah's will, court hears
The Daily Telegraph
September 14, 2010 12:00AM
A MUSLIM accused of plotting a terrorist attack on a NSW army base said the Black Saturday bushfires were Allah's punishment on Australians, a court heard yesterday.
In a secretly recorded phone call, Saney Edow Aweys told a man in Somalia the bushfires were divine intervention and punishment, prosecutor Nick Robinson SC said.
Mr Robinson told a Victorian Supreme Court jury Aweys and four other Melbourne men planned a terrorist attack on the Holsworthy army base with high-powered weapons. They wanted to kill as many soldiers as possible before they were either killed or overwhelmed.
When local clerics refused to provide a fatwa or religious decree to permit the plan to go ahead, co-accused Yacqub Khayre travelled to Somalia to obtain one, Mr Robinson said.
Wissam Mahmoud Fattal carried out a reconnaissance of the Holsworthy base to assess its suitability for the attack. In transcripts of intercepted calls to his parents, Fattal talks of martyrdom and complains of the Australian army involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He said: "If I find a way to kill the army I'm gonna do it."
On trial are Aweys, 26, of Carlton North, Khayre, 22, of Meadow Heights, Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed, 25, of Preston, Fattal, 33, of Melbourne and Nayef El Sayed, 25 of Glenroy.
They have pleaded not guilty to conspiring with each other and persons unknown between February 1 and August 4 last year to do acts in preparation for, or planning a terrorist act or acts.
Black Saturday “allah’s will”
Mr Robinson said the men believed Islam was under attack from the West and that Australians and the Australian Government were oppressing innocent Muslims in Afghanistan.
Justice Betty King warned the jury that the trial was about the alleged commission of a criminal offence, not about Islam.
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