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| Down Under |
| Aussie Muslim Convert Said an al-Qaida Recruit--Trial starts |
| 2004-05-17 |
| A British-born Muslim convert was recruited by al-Qaida for a plan to blow up the Israeli embassy in Canberra with a truck bomb, prosecutors said Monday on the opening day of the man’s trial. Jack Roche, 50, was told by senior officials in Osama bin Laden’s terror network to form a terror cell in Australia to carry out the plot, prosecutor Ron Davies told Perth District Court. Roche has pleaded innocent to one charge of conspiring to damage the Israeli embassy by means of explosives, and as a consequence harm diplomatic staff. He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in convicted. Prosecutors told the jury Roche traveled to Afghanistan to meet with senior figures from the terrorist organization — including bin Laden — in March 2000. Davies said that Roche had several meetings with one of bin Laden’s deputies, identified in court documents as Abu Haifs, and had one meeting with bin Laden himself in which the plan to bomb the embassy was forged. It was not immediately clear if the court papers were referring to Abu Hafs al-Masri, the alias of Mohammad Atef, a top lieutenant of bin Laden who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan in 2001. In the indictment papers, Roche reportedly told Australian Federal Police that the man identified as Abu Haifs was bin Laden’s second in command. Roche trained with explosives for 10 days at an al-Qaida camp nine miles from Kandahar, Afghanistan, before returning to Australia and beginning surveillance operations of the Israeli diplomatic building in Canberra, as well as the Israeli consulate in Sydney, Davies said. He also began recruiting people to take part in the plot and checked the availability of explosives, the court heard. Ibrahim Fraser, who learned about explosives while working in a mine, told the court he met Roche at a Sydney mosque, where Roche boasted to him several times he was going to destroy Canberra’s Israeli embassy — and that bin Laden had told him to do it. "He said it was bin Laden’s way to remind the people of the problems in Palestine," Fraser told the court. "I thought he was crazy." Fraser said Roche had asked him how he could get hold of TNT. Raids on Roche’s house in Perth recovered video recordings, still photographs and notes made during the surveillance, the court was told. Davies quoted Roche’s comments in a newspaper interview before his arrest in November 2002, in which he was asked about targeting the Israeli embassy. "He said he had no qualms about the Israeli people around the embassy ... in his words, not mine, they were fair game," Davies said. Roche, who is an Australian citizen, converted to Islam more than 10 years ago. |
| Posted by:TS(vice girl) |
| #1 The Aussie court system needs to send a loud message, warning anyone else who wants to join the death cult of Islamic fanatics, do not bother or you will be in the clink! |
| Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-05-17 10:29:03 AM |