Pulling pin on bomb terror plotters' trial
Keith Moor
The Daily Telegraph
September 21, 2011
POLICE secretly created and exploded a "Mother of Satan" bomb to prove that Abdul Benbrika and his extremist followers had the materials to make the feared terrorist device.
They were able to show that terrorist followers of the radical Muslim cleric ordered or bought chemicals and specialist laboratory equipment to make a bomb capable of killing and injuring hundreds of
people.
The "Mother of Satan" bomb is the weapon of choice for terrorists around the world.
It was used in the 2005 London Tube and bus bombings which killed 52 people and injured more than 700, as well as many more terror attacks during the past decade.
But now officers from the joint taskforce that foiled the devastating plot - which had included a bomb attack at Sydney's nuclear reactor - must face the fact Benbrika and the other Melbourne cell members
will not face a jury.
The decision to permanently stay the charges in Victoria was made despite evidence in the trial of the NSW cell members that a terrorist attack of potentially mammoth proportions was imminent when
Benbrika and the Melbourne and Sydney cell members were arrested in co-ordinated swoops in 2005. NSW cell members Mohamed Elomar, 46, Abdul Rakib Hasan, 41, Khaled Cheikho, 38, Moustafa Cheikho,
33, and Mohammed Omar Jamal, 27, were subsequently convicted of conspiring to commit a terrorist act and jailed for 23 to 28 years.
In that trial, prosecutor Richard Maidment SC said the men sought large quantities of firearms, ammunition and chemicals that would have enabled them to build devices "capable of causing substantial
damage and loss of life".
"There are a number of utterances which suggest that the purpose of the organisation was to do something big, cause maximum damage, kill a thousand at the train station, football, whatever," he said.
The prosecution detailed the role of Benbrika and Aimen Joud in helping to order the lab equipment as evidence of a conspiracy to commit a terrorist act. It also provided an extensive chronology of the
many contacts between NSW and Melbourne terror cell members as more evidence of a joint conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.
Justice Terry Forrest's decision means Benbrika, Joud, Fadl Sayadi and Ahmed Raad will not face extra jail time on top of their sentences on the lesser terrorism charges they received in 2008.
Related Coverage
- Revealed: What a jury will never hear Adelaide Now,28 minutes ago
- A reprieve for terrorists in Australia Herald Sun, 58 minutes ago
- Terrorists can't be prosecuted Herald Sun, 58 minutes ago
- Terror cleric headed twin cells The Australian, 58 minutes ago
- Melbourne terror cell charges abandoned The Daily Telegraph, 8 hours ago
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