NSW Premier Mike Baird and NSW Police commissioner Scipione to hold talks with Muslim Community Leaders following Assassination of Mr Curtis Cheng.

Baird and Scipione hold crisis talks with Muslim leaders

Linda Silmalis
Chief Reporter
The Sunday Telegraph
October 11 2015.

MUSLIM leaders will hold crisis talks with Premier Mike Baird tomorrow in the wake of growing community outrage at the rise of Islamic extremism and the radicalisation of youth.

Around 10 Muslim leaders are being approached this weekend to attend the meeting with Mr Baird and Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione.

Government sources were keen to play down the talks yesterday, describing the meeting as “a catch-up”.

However, the meeting has been hastily arranged in the wake of the Parramatta police station shooting and is a significant sign of the concern within State government ranks at the radicalisation of young Muslim into Jihadists.

The meeting comes as Prime Minister Malcolm Turbull convenes his own summit with security agencies in Canberra this week.

Among the leaders expected to be invited by Mr Baird and Mr Scipione is Parramatta mosque chairman Neil El-Kadomi.

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Arthur Philip High School student Farhad Jabar, 15, visited the mosque just before he shot and killed accountant Curtis Cheng outside Police headquarters.

Mr El-Kadomi, who migrated to Australia from war-torn Lebanon with help from the family of former Howard government minister Philip Ruddock, said Muslim parents needed to become more involved in their children’s lives.

The former teacher, whose daughter worked in the electorate office of former Carr government minister David Borger, said he believed a lack of education also contributed to the children of migrant families becoming vulnerable to radicalisation.

Friends of Jabar were last week coming to terms with the transformation of the basketball-loving student turned teen terrorist.

A group of teenagers who regularly played basketball with Jabar at Sherwin Park near his Parramatta home believe the change began around three months ago after he swapped his favourite NBL basketball singlet and shorts for black robes.

An elder brother of Jabar’s also began turning up to the courts, although he did not play.

One teenage girl, whose concerned mother stopped her from attending the courts, said the atmosphere among the group changed.