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| Down Under |
| Three Melbourne men guilty of planning terror attack |
| 2010-12-23 |
| Opening the case prosecutor Nick Robinson SC told the jury the men believed Islam was under attack from the West and that Australians and the Australian Government were oppressing innocent Muslims in Afghanistan. The court heard when local clerics refused to provide a fatwa, or religious decree, to permit the plan, Mr Khayre went to Somalia to get one. Mr Robinson stressed to the jury that the Islamic religion was not on trial and he said the men had committed a criminal act. Much of the prosecution case was based on secretly recorded conversations between the men in which they discussed the plot and their attitude to the ``kaffirs'' or non-believers. Aweys said the Black Saturday bushfires were Allah's punishment on Australians. Aweys told a person in a phone conversation with an associate in Somalia an Islamic cleric had been sentenced in Melbourne to 15 years in jail on terrorist charges and the Muslim community was upset. "The next day fires broke out in the whole country. Allah bring them calamity," Awey said. Fattal is heard in a conversation with his parents aid he wanted to be the best martyr on Earth and asked them to pray for him because he wanted to die for Allah's cause. The jury heard transcripts of intercepted calls in which Mr Fattal says he would be rewarded in paradise if he sacrificed his life for Islam. "I am trusting my cause to Allah, God the Almighty,'' he allegedly said. Mr Fattal tells his father he wants to be: ``The best one on Earth, the best martyr on Earth. The one who is killed by the false messenger. "Later you will hear good news about me.'' Fattal also complained of the Australian army's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said: "If I find a way to kill the army, I'm gonna do it." |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #1 I read elsewhere that the three convicted and two others acquitted were all Somali or Lebanese, for what that's worth. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-12-23 17:21 |