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Trial begins for five accused in terror plot in Australia
Five men accused of plotting a terrorist attack went on trial Tuesday with prosecutors alleging that the men were Islamic extremists who stockpiled weapons and explosive chemicals in a plan to wage violent jihad against non-Muslims. After eight months of pretrial arguments and closed-door hearings, federal prosecutors began laying out their case against the five men, aged 24 to 43, before the New South Wales Supreme Court in western Sydney amid strict security. Khaled Cheikho, Moustafa Cheikho, Mohamed Ali Elomar, Abdul Rakib Hasan and Mohammed Omar Jamal were arrested in November 2005 and charged with conspiring to commit acts in preparation for a terrorist act, or acts. They have pleaded not guilty. Prosecutor Richard Maidment told the jury that the men were Islamic radicals who had obtained or sought to obtain large quantities of household and industrial chemicals that could be used to make explosives, and had also stockpiled guns and ammunition in preparation for the alleged attack, which was intended partly as retaliation for Australias support of the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Police raids on the mens homes had also uncovered a substantial cache of extremist material, Mr. Maidment said, including bombmaking instructions, graphic videos of ritual beheadings and images of the hijacked planes smashing into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The men possessed large quantities of literature which supported indiscriminate killing, mass murder and martyrdom in pursuit of violent jihad, and which apparently sought to provide religious justification for conduct of that nature, Mr. Maidment said, according to local media at the court. The men, who face possible life sentences if convicted, are accused of launching the conspiracy between July 2004 and their arrests in November 2005. Specific details of the alleged plot or potential targets have not been released. Details of the case have been shrouded in secrecy. In the months leading up to Tuesdays opening, presiding Justice Anthony Whealy issued some 65 written judgments, all but two of which - one on the location of the trial and the other on the configuration of the courtroom - were suppressed. In his instructions to the jury, the judge said that although the five men were being tried together, jurors would have to weigh the circumstantial case presented by the prosecution to reach individual verdicts for each defendant. He also warned the jurors not to prejudge the defendants because of their religion or appearance. You must take prejudice and bias out of this trial altogether, the judge said. Its an obvious truism for me to tell you that the Muslim religion is not on trial here. Posted by: ryuge 2008-11-11 |
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