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| Down Under |
| I'd chop up PM, claims 'terrorist' |
| 2006-04-28 |
| AUSTRALIA'S most wanted terror suspect, Saleh Jamal, has pledged loyalty to Osama bin Laden and threatened to "chop up" John Howard as Lebanese authorities prepare to deport him as early as May 8. Jamal's firebrand comments come before his imminent rearrest by Australian police, who will use one of six arrest warrants prepared during his two years in a Beirut prison for firearms trafficking and entering Lebanon on a false passport. The part-time butcher fled Sydney in March 2004 while on trial for five counts of attempted murder during the 1998 shoot-up of the Lakemba police station in the city's southwest. He has since been the subject of intense interest by counter-terrorism police. Jamal was captured in Lebanon after ASIO intercepted a phone call he made to his wife. The spy agency believed the call suggested he planned to become a suicide bomber. Lebanese authorities have told The Australian they will deport Jamal as soon as his two-year sentence expires on May 8, eliminating the need for Australia and Lebanon to sign an extradition treaty. From his Beirut prison, Jamal told The Australian he would fight every step to deport him, insisting he never again wanted to set foot in Australia and describing the Prime Minister as an "evil man". "I feel sorry for the Australian people," Jamal said. "I love Osama bin Laden, I love (al-Qa'ida's leader in Iraq) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, I love al-Qa'ida. I will never go against their word. "If the Australian people want me, Saleh Jamal, then they're going to cop the consequences. I don't want to go back to Australia. I don't want to see Australia." Jamal threatened to kill Mr Howard. "If I was given the opportunity I'd chop him up too, without any doubt, or remorse, because he's a very evil man," Jamal said. "If he was just to listen to people, he'd be a better person. He was the one who wrecked Australia. "His people don't want war against terrorism, against Muslims. He's the Prime Minister of Australia, not the puppet of George Bush. "There are 50 people in Australia who want to die (for an Islamic cause). The Australian Government should think really, really hard. "Death means nothing to these people. I wouldn't want to be in a country where sheik Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, wages war against them. "Do you know how easy it is to get 100 blokes, to talk to them for 10 minutes to do that, to get them to meet their lord? They'll destroy anything. Look at each person killing 10 people, that's 1000 people." NSW police are attempting to mount a terrorism case against Jamal, who is closely linked to six of the men charged last November in Sydney with terrorism offences as a result of the nation's largest ever counter-terror probe, Operation Pendennis. Jamal is accused of being central to the fledgling days of the investigation, when NSW police and Australian Federal Police monitored him using a small boat on Sydney Harbour to allegedly examine the Shell oil refinery, Harbour Bridge and Walsh Bay before New Year's Eve celebrations in 2003. He is also facing arrest warrants for his alleged role in the Lakemba shooting, using a bogus passport to leave Australia and two other attempted murder cases. But Jamal insists he has no case to answer in Australia, after his two co-accused in the Lakemba shooting were found not guilty during a Supreme Court trial last year. |
| Posted by:ed |