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Australian al-Qaeda member is a former army private
FORMER army private Mathew Stewart has emerged as the chief suspect in the hunt for the masked terrorist with an Australian accent.Stewart left home four years ago to fight alongside Osama bin Laden and has not been seen since. The Australian Federal Police wasted no time investigating Stewart as the likely hooded figure in the video aired on Arab television. Officers interviewed his mother Vicki Stewart, who denied the heavily armed man was the missing son she had long believed dead. But one of Stewart's friends, Adam Miechel, said he believed the self-declared terrorist on the video was the man he had known in Mooloolaba, on the Sunshine Coast. "My first thought was, 'yeah, it even sounds like him'," Mr Miechel said yesterday. "It looks like him, it sounds like him as well." Stewart made headlines when he allegedly fled Australia to fulfil his dream of living in Afghanistan and fighting alongside the Taliban. US forces reportedly found documents identifying Stewart as an Al-Qaeda recruit during a raid on a terrorist training camp in late 2002. Intelligence agencies believe he made the decision to fight against US and Australian forces after returning from a tour of duty in East Timor, which caused him to have a mental breakdown and led to him being discharged from the army on psychological grounds. Vicki Stewart was too distressed to speak yesterday and took the day off work to deal with authorities. A family spokesman released a statement confirming that police were treating her missing son as a suspect. "She (Mrs Stewart) has been contacted by the federal police and has been shown photographs by officers and advised them that the person in the photograph was definitely not Mathew Stewart," the spokesman said. "The family is still grieving for Mathew, who disappeared four years ago without a trace. "The family supports the work that the federal police are doing in this matter." Mr Miechel said he felt uncomfortable talking about the matter because he was concerned that fresh talk that Stewart was alive would upset his family. In a tragic twist, it is understood Stewart's parents held a small funeral service for their son without a body in Queensland. Stewart is one of a handful of Australians believed to have travelled to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-08-11 |
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