AUSTRALIAN terrorist suspect Mamdouh Habib wore an Osama bin Laden T-shirt and tried to sign up Sydney Muslims for jihad, according to former spiritual colleagues. But he never posed a serious threat to the community despite his "big mouth", said members of a western Sydney mosque, who fell out with the Guantanamo Bay detainee over his increasingly erratic behaviour.
In a report to be aired on ABC television's Four Corners program, the spiritual leader of the mosque said Mr Habib was a disturbed man who regularly argued angrily about religion. "He used to wear the photo of Osama bin Laden (on) his T-shirt," Sheikh Abu Ayman told the program, describing it as a "childish thing".
| My wife has a Shirley Temple cup. I'm keeping an eye on her... |
Mr Habib also appeared at the mosque, which was near the Lakemba mosque, dressed in a "ninja hat or something like that and white suit and black belt", he said. "I could say he's a disturbed man. If you don't agree with him he will accuse you of every name under the sun and again this is not a normal thing from a normal person to do."
Sheik Abu said people would give their names to Mr Habib and "find out that he's collecting these names for so-called jihad or something like that". He did not know where Mr Habib wanted people to fight, but believed it was overseas, probably in Chechnya. "Chechnya was the main area, the hot area in that time," he said.
| "Whaddya mean, you signed me up for jihad in Chechnya? If I miss any more work my boss is gonna fire me!" |
Australia's most senior Islamic cleric, Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hilaly, reportedly almost deported in the 1980s for radical religious views, described Mr Habib as "sharp and aggressive. He would get angry quickly and then calm down quickly."
| Starting to sound like he's bipolar... |
A taxi driver who frequented Mr Habib's coffee shop was quoted as saying Mr Habib travelled to Afghanistan to "live with bin Laden" and to have his children learn Islam there. On returning, Mr Habib had not said what he had done, but said he had met bin Laden and found Afghanistan a "truly great place". But the taxi driver did not believe Mr Habib was a terrorist.
| "He ain't no terrorist! He's a goof!" |
"People join the army but they don't all go to war," he said. The Four Cornersreport says Mr Habib met two Germans near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and the three then caught a bus headed for Karachi. Pakistani police stopped the bus and detained the Germans. Mr Habib was only arrested after protesting angrily about the treatment of his companions.
| I suspect the names of his companions weren't "Hans" and "Franz". |
Sheikh Abu said he wasn't surprised Mr Habib was detained in Guantanamo Bay, "because a man with a big mouth like this, he will end up there. But the Government didn't do anything to let the American (Government) understand this is not the right man in your hand, he is not what he claims he is. He is a disturbed man (but) he doesn't deserve that punishment for his big mouth."
| I dunno. Sounds like he fit right in back in South Waziristan... |
The Australian Government believes Mr Habib trained with Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaeda before he was arrested on October 5, 2001. |