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| Down Under |
| More on Roche |
| 2004-05-18 |
| Islamic convert Jack Roche was recruited by the al-Qaeda terrorist network to form an Australian cell and ordered directly by Osama bin Laden to blow up the Israeli embassy with a truck bomb, a court was told here Monday. The trial of British-born Roche, 50, the first Australian resident charged under the country’s tough new anti-terrorist legislation, began before a jury in the District Court here Monday under tight security. Roche denies a charge of conspiring to damage the Israeli embassy in Canberra by means of explosives, and as a consequence harm diplomatic staff. Prosecutor Ron Davies QC told the jury that Roche had travelled to Afghanistan to meet senior figures from the terrorist organisation — including bin Laden — in March 2000. Several discussions with a man named as bin Laden’s then-deputy, Abu Haifs, and one sit-down meeting with bin Laden, led to the plan to target Israeli interests in Australia. Davies said that after undergoing 10 days of explosives training at an al-Qaeda camp 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Kandahar, Roche then returned to Australia and began surveillance operations on diplomatic buildings in Canberra and Sydney. He had also begun a recruitment process — of Caucasians, so as not to raise suspicion — and made inquiries about the availability of explosives. Explosives expert Ibrahim Fraser, who met Roche at a Sydney mosque, told the court Roche had boasted to him he was going to destroy Canberra’s Israeli embassy — and that bin Laden had told him to do it. "He told me (of the plan) between 20 and 25 times over a couple of years. 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, a former mine site shot firer, said Roche had asked him how he could obtain TNT, and had discussed at length his belief in waging jihad against non-Muslims. Fraser said he was so disturbed at Roche’s plan he contacted the Australian High Commission in Singapore in mid-2001 to warn them, but they never returned his calls. Raids on Roche’s house in Perth recovered video recordings, stills and notes made during the surveillance, the court was told. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |