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| Down Under |
| JI member to testify against Lodhi |
| 2004-11-14 |
| A suspected terrorist detained in Singapore will testify via video link in a Sydney trial against a Sydney architect accused of plotting to blow up Australia's national electricity grid. Singaporean student Muhammad Arif Naharudin is believed to have given Australian police crucial information linking Faheem Khalid Lodhi to the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Sunday Times reported. The Singaporean and the Pakistani-born Australian are alleged to have met at a Pakistani training camp linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba. Lodhi, 34, of Punchbowl, also known as Hamza, has been charged by Australian authorities with seven offences including plans to blow up the country's power grid. He is also accused of plotting and recruiting for a chemical attack on a Sydney military base. He was arrested in April after security authorities allegedly found plans in his Sydney office for making petrol bombs, grenades, poison, cyanide gas and sulphuric acid. More than 600 files on Islamic extremism were found on a computer disk in his home. A bid by Lodhi's lawyer to stop next month's video testimony on the grounds it would be an "abrogation of the Australian court powers" was rejected by Sydney Central Court last week. Government officials in Singapore could not be reached to confirm the report. But a spokesman from the home affairs ministry was quoted as saying the Singapore government "will accede within the ambit of our laws". Naharudin, 21, has been detained for more than a year for allegedly being a member of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), believed to be the Southeast Asian wing of Osama bin laden's al-Qaeda network. Last year, three alleged JI members detained in Singapore testified from the city-state via TV link against Indonesian Muslin cleric Abu Bakar Bashir in his Jakarta trial. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |