Sydney men the `bombmakers’ – TERROR HITS HOME: [1 All-round Country Edition]
Simon Kearney, David King, Additional reporting: John Stapleton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 09 Nov 2005: 3.
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Abstract
NSW Police and Australian Federal Police agents discovered chemicals during the raids yesterday morning, which NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said could be used in “highly volatile” combinations.
By mid-morning eight men had been arrested. Moustafa Cheikho, 28, Khaled Cheikho, 32 and Khaled Sharrouf, 24, all of Wiley Park; Mazen Touma, 25, and Mohamed Ali Elomar, 40, of Bankstown, Abdul Rakib Hasan of Lakemba and Mirsad Mulahalilovic were charged with preparing or planning a terrorist act.
Mr [Mohamed Elomar] has family links to a NSW southern tablelands property exposed as a terrorist training camp five years ago.
Full Text
THE seven men charged in Sydney have been accused of being the bombmakers of the foiled terrorist operation.
They were charged with conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation for a terrorist act.
NSW Police and Australian Federal Police agents discovered chemicals during the raids yesterday morning, which NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said could be used in “highly volatile” combinations.
The raids in Sydney, involving 360 NSW police and 77 AFP agents, began at 2.30am in 13 locations across eight suburbs in the city’s southwest.
By mid-morning eight men had been arrested. Moustafa Cheikho, 28, Khaled Cheikho, 32 and Khaled Sharrouf, 24, all of Wiley Park; Mazen Touma, 25, and Mohamed Ali Elomar, 40, of Bankstown, Abdul Rakib Hasan of Lakemba and Mirsad Mulahalilovic were charged with preparing or planning a terrorist act.
The eighth man, Omar Baladjam, 27, was arrested after a shootout with police near the Green Valley Mosque. He was shot in the neck by a NSW police officer after initiating the gun battle. He will be charged at a bedside hearing in Liverpool Hospital this morning.
The group’s lawyer Adam Houda said their arrests had been politically motivated.
“There is no evidence in these cases that terrorism was being contemplated by any particular person at any particular time or any particular place,” Mr Houda said.
One of the men, believed to be engineer Mohamed Elomar, tried to elude police but was found about 3.45am cowering in bushes in a park in Sydney’s southwest.
A police helicopter using infra-red vision equipment spotted him in Condell Park and directed police with dogs to where he was found hiding in a group of small trees.
Police and forensic experts crawled over Mr Elomar’s house in nearby Gallipoli Street throughout the morning. They took a computer hard drive and several boxes of other material from the house shortly after 9am.
Mr Elomar has family links to a NSW southern tablelands property exposed as a terrorist training camp five years ago.
On the eve of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games police were called to investigate neighbouring farmers’ reports of sustained automatic gunfire and explosions at a property on Kain Road, Krawarree, southeast of Canberra.
The property was, and still is, co-owned by four men — three of Mohamed Ali Elomar’s brothers, Jehad, Ibrahim and Mamdouh, and Maxwell William French.
Police discovered what appeared to be a terrorist training camp complete with live military rounds, rudimentary explosives and Islamic literature.
Authorities believed the radical Islamic Youth Movement used the property for shooting practice.
They also believe that Australian man Saleh Jamal, who is in a Lebanese jail on terrorism charges, had a link to the suspected camp.
The camp involved another Australian with connections to Willie Brigitte, the Frenchman arrested in Sydney in October 2003 with alleged plans to launch a major terrorist attack here.
Mr Elomar’s wife Sadile, pregnant with her sixth child, was taken to nearby Bankstown Hospital distressed over the situation but was later released. His elderly mother Souad, 77, was also taken to hospital suffering from heart problems.
The family said her life savings of about $10,000, which she kept in the house because she distrusted banks, had been confiscated.