 A SYDNEY man has been committed to stand trial on charges of lying to the national intelligence agency ASIO about contact he had with French terrorist suspect Willie Brigitte. Abdul Rakib Hasan, a butcher from Lakemba in Sydney's southwest, is charged with two counts of making false or misleading statements to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) under questioning in 2003. Hasan, 36, appeared in Sydney's Central Local Court this morning via video link and indicated through his lawyer that he would plead not guilty to the charges.
| "Nope. Nope. Never happened." |
Magistrate Allan Moore today committed Hasan to stand trial on both charges. "It looks like the evidence is capable of satisfying a jury beyond reasonable doubt," Mr Moore said. An Australian Federal Police (AFP) fact sheet tendered to the court said Hasan helped Brigitte, whom he knew as Jamal, find accommodation on three occasions while the Frenchman was in Australia between May and October 2003. When questioned under an ASIO warrant in November 2003, Hasan initially said he did not know Brigitte was staying at the first address until the Frenchman told him. But later in the same hearing he said he had arranged for Brigitte to stay there.
| "I arranged it, but I din't know he dunnit, see?" |
Between June 12, 2003, and September 30, 2003, Hasan and Brigitte had 24 telephone conversations, the AFP document said. According to the AFP, Brigitte made 42 calls to Hasan at his work but he was only there to answer them 24 times. "On 24 of those occasions the defendant was at work and had a conversation with Mr Brigitte," the document said.
| "But they ain't nothin' wrong with that! He wuz interested in meat!" |
But during the November 2003 hearing, Hasan said he only spoke to Brigitte three times during that period.
| "Each conversation was split up among a dozen phone calls, see? So I only talked to him three times..." |
Hasan will be arraigned in NSW District Court on November 25.
| "I been framed, I tells yez!" |
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