 SYDNEY fugitive Saleh Jamal, awaiting a terrorism trial in Lebanon next month, has been linked to Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Court documents allege he was sent abroad by an Australian Islamist to stage jihad attacks against US and Israeli interests.
| So that'd be Zark in his capacity as a Qaeda leading light, rather than simply as chief of Qaeda in Iraq... |
In the prosecution documents, security officials say Jamal tried to join the Iraqi insurgency in April last year. However, he was refused entry by Jordan, along with his brother Ahmed and another man, Mohammed Sultan. Jamal is alleged to have been introduced to Zarqawi's network through a Bosnian militant he met in Lebanon, Abdullah Taratshebak. The Bosnian and another accused terrorist, Abdul Latif, also tried unsuccessfully to enter Iraq from Jordan.
| These don't sound like the world's best terrorists. The seem to lack a certain amount of ruthless cunning... |
Jamal is accused of being linked to a number of men involved with al-Qa'ida, among them three Sydney Islamists who have been the subject of ASIO surveillance for two years. Lebanon's military court claims Jamal's flight from Australia, using a false passport, was financed by the prominent Sydney Islamist, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
| Meaning he's gonna go down, but not yet... |
Prosecutors say the Sydney Islamist was helped by an Australian resident, Ashref Shaha, who provided $4500 to Jamal. He then skipped bail on charges of shooting at the Lakemba police station in Sydney's southwest in 1998.
| Who shot up the cop shoppe? Ashref or Saleh? |
Jamal was arrested in May last year at Beirut airport, where he was about to board a flight to Paris.
| Gay Paree is not in Iraq. Or did they move it? |
He was sentenced to five years' jail for weapons offences and for entering Lebanon on a false document.
| "M'sieur? Your passport. It is drawn in crayon." |
Prosecutors want to upgrade the charges to serious terrorism offences, alleging Jamal delivered material to terrorists who launched a bomb attack in the Syrian capital Damascus two weeks before his arrest. Two people were killed in the attack near an embassy compound.
| I guess what they lack in ruthless cunning they make up in viciousness... |
The Australian revealed last week that federal police learned Jamal was in Lebanon through an intercepted phone call he made to his wife in Sydney, during which he said she would never see him again because he was "going to a place that is higher than the mountains".
"Good bye, honey! I shall never see you again! I am going to a place that is higher than the mountains..."
"[Giggle!] Stop it, Sven!"
"Sven? Who's Sven?"
"Never mind! What were you saying?" |
Court documents allege Jamal became radicalised while in jail in NSW awaiting trial. "During his jail time, he met some people who changed his personality completely and he became more religious and started going to the mosque," the documents claim.
| He was in jug when he met them. Sounds like he was pretty devout already... |
"Then he started creating links to people belonging to that organisation ... They started discussing ideas about jihad and that they should not stay quiet about what is happening to the Islamic nations.
| "Yeah! It's terrible, what they're doing! We should kill them all!" |
(The prominent Sydney Islamist) told him he was going to help him leave the country to Lebanon for a jihadi aim. He said he would help him meet people in Lebanon who would help him achieve his goal. "He had relationships with people who are believed to have links with al-Qa'ida."
| Reeeeeeaaaaally? That's never happened before, has it? |
The documents do not detail how evidence against Jamal was obtained. However, much of the claims depend on confessions of people convicted of conspiring with him to travel to Syria. Among them are two Palestinian clerics who allegedly provided weapons training in refugee camps in southern Lebanon. Jamal is believed to have forged links in a Palestinian refugee camp with Usbat-al-Ansar, an outlawed group linked to Zarqawi's network.
| Which'd put him in Ein el-Hellhole... |
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