Terror suspect arrested in Australia

[Uncle Sam]

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/world/story/0,4386,247287,00.html


SYDNEY - Australian police have arrested a man suspected of having links to a French terror suspect who was involved in plans to blow up a nuclear reactor on Sydney's outskirts.

Lodhi Faheem, 34, was charged in Sydney's Central Local Court with seven offences related to a terrorism investigation of Willie Virgile Brigitte, including collecting or making documents likely to facilitate terrorist acts, preparing for a terrorist act, recruiting for a terrorist organisation and making false or misleading statements.

If convicted, the Australian of Pakistani origin faces a minimum of five years in jail and a maximum of life imprisonment. He was refused bail. -- AP

[Hellman109]

To those that dont know We only have one nuclear powerplant, but the news said they were going to attack our electrical system, not mentioning tha plant directly.

Also, I reckon I could link 2/3 people to Al'quieda in some way, Im DAMN sick of hearing "link to al'quieda" grrr....

[usa320]

http://www.slightlywarped.com/forumpictures/owned/saddam-owned.jpg

[army cadet_ngcsu]

Big Al seems to be linked to everyone...

[seruriermarshal]

I believe AQ ready attack Australian , after Spain ......

[Aussie E]

From www.theaustralian.news.com.au

The Weekend Australian , 17-04-2004 , Ed: 1 - All-round Country , Pg: 001 , 550 words , LOCAL
THE arrest of a Sydney student on terrorism training charges has intensified the police focus on four Sydney men allegedly linked to a Pakistan-based terror cell that ASIO suspects plotted to bomb Australian military bases last year. Fourth-year medi...
This would be the second arrest in Australia, earlier this month they arrested a Pakistani (Australian citizen) med student with links to the same French terror suspect. The Frenchman was deported awhile back and is in prison in France. Last year I was down in AZ, there was a Kiwi down there that informed me that during the summer olympics in Sydney the Kiwi's busted a terror ring in NZ, in the house they had blueprints to the nuclear power plant in Australia. I'm sure they were just engineering students doing their final thesis on terrorism!
From www.theaustralian.news.com.au

Plot to bomb
power grid
By Martin Chulov and Rory Callinan
April 23, 2004
A SYDNEY architect who was allegedly the point man for accused French terrorist Willie Brigitte is accused of intending to bomb the national electricity grid with nitrate he was in the process of ordering under bogus company names.

Pakistan-born Faheem Khalid Lodhi, 34, of the west Sydney suburb of Punchbowl, was charged yesterday by Australian Federal Police officers with three of the most serious terrorism-related offences on the commonwealth statutes.

They include committing an act in preparation for a terrorist attack, recklessly recruiting others to join a terrorist organisation and making documents to facilitate a terrorist attack.

The charge of preparing for a terrorits attack, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, involves alleged plans to bomb a "major infrastructure facility" - the electricity grid. Lodhi was alleged to have used a false order form, under an assumed name, to solicit maps of the grid from the Electricity Suppliers Association.

The recruitment charge centres on an alleged attempt to convince the Sydney medical student Izhar Ul-Haque, who was arrested on terror charges last week, to join the Kashmir-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Lodhi also faces two other charges, including using false names to apply for a mobile telephone number and to buy chemicals.

Documents tendered to Sydney's Central Local Court say some of Lodhi's alleged offences occurred up to two years before Brigitte's time in Sydney last year.

Chief among them was the allegation that he tried to recruit Ul-Haque and others to LET between March 2001 and April 2003.

A federal police statement of facts alleges that Ul-Haque incriminated Lodhi during interviews with authorities last November - shortly after Brigitte was deported to France.

Lodhi was accused of providing misleading information to ASIO about his association with Ul-Haque and another Pakistan-based man, known as Sajid, who is believed to be a terrorist combat trainer.

The police fact sheet alleges Lodhi had dumped in a park rubbish bin near his home maps of military installations, including the Holsworthy army base.

On October 10 last year, seven days before Brigitte's deportation, Lodhi allegedly faxed an order for chemicals to the Sydney office of a firm called Deltrex, using the false company name Eagle Flyers.

On May 6, shortly after Brigitte's arrival, Lodhi allegedly used a false name, Sam Praveen, to obtain a Vodafone mobile number.

AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty confirmed last night that Lodhi's arrest was part of a continuing investigation into LET.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said he expected more arrests to follow.

In applying for bail, Lodhi's solicitor Stephen Hopper claimed police and ASIO had relied solely on circumstantial evidence. 'My client loves Australia and would not want to hurt any Australian citizen in any way,' he said.

Bail was refused.




How net around suspects was tightened
By Martin Chulov and Rory Callinan
April 23, 2004
BEARDED, pious, polite and elusive, Faheem Khalid Lodhi proved a hard man to pin down.

Since October 14 last year, ASIO and the Australian Federal Police had been scrutinising the Pakistani national, perhaps more closely than they had monitored anyone else in the nation.

Despite the collective efforts of both agencies and the NSW Police, they did not feel comfortable about moving against him until yesterday morning.

Lodhi, 34, an architect, was arrested at 9.35am in the grounds of his new workplace, the architectural firm BHI in the inner-Sydney suburb of Alexandria.

He had been there only a matter of weeks, after being out of work since his contract with his previous employer, city firm Thomson Adsett, was not renewed last October.

It was about that time that Lodhi's world began to crumble. In early November, he was brought in by ASIO and interrogated about his links to Frenchman Willie Brigitte, who visited Sydney for six months from last May with alleged evil intent.

Brigitte, described as the closest link to al-Qa'ida detected in Australia, was deported on October 17. His debriefing in front of French anti-terror judge Jean Paul Bruguierre revealed a list of people he had dealt with in Sydney. Lodhi was prime among them.

Lodhi's links to Brigitte and Sydney medical student Izhar Ul-Haque pointed authorities to a third associate - a mysterious Pakistan-based figure named Sajid, allegedly the commander of training camps for the now-banned Kashmiri terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Phone records showed frequent contact between Sajid and Lodhi at the Punchbowl home he shares with his wife, although no conversations were recorded.

With police and spies working frantically, a list of circumstantial suspicions was soon raised against Lodhi.

Raids conducted at Thomson Adsett uncovered geographical software and copies of facsimiles sent to a Sydney-based chemical firm, Deltrex, inquiring about prices of bulk quantities of substances including nitric acid and urea, which can be used to make explosives.

The director of Thomson Adsett's Sydney office, Sue Kenny, was reluctant to comment yesterday, but denied Lodhi had been sacked from the firm.

"I don't agree with the newspaper headlines that he had been sacked because of a chemical order. It would be wrong to say that. He was on a contract with us and his contract was complete, the project was finished," Ms Kenny said.

"I have had dealings with the federal police and ... I'm not prepared to go into what happened."

In Sydney's Central Local Court yesterday, with Lodhi now facing seven charges - three of which are terror-related - his lawyer, Stephen Hopper, described his client as a peaceful man who loved Australia.

Mr Hopper said explanations existed for everything of which Lodhi was accused.

"They are basing their case solely on suspicion," Mr Hopper said. "What they are basically saying is something like, this person, for instance, likes paintball, he has an aeroplane licence and he likes playing violent computer games.

"These are all characteristics I possess, but I'm certainly not a terrorist."





And Pakistan is our number 1 aly in the war on terror.

[Aussie E]

Latest article from www.theaustralian.news.com.au

The award-winning life of a suburban 'terrorist'
By Trudy Harris and Martin Chulov
May 01, 2004
TWO pictures have emerged of the first Australian to face court charged under new anti-terror laws for allegedly receiving training from a terrorist group.

While the prosecution alleged this week that terror suspect Izhar Ul-Haque, 21, trained with a banned terrorist organisation in Pakistan, expecting to fight in a jihad, or holy war, and die a martyr, the defence painted a very different picture of the medical student.

A Sydney local court heard that Mr Ul-Haque, who was arrested two weeks ago, was a courteous student originally from Pakistan, who loved playing cricket with his brothers and sleeping late on weekends.

When he was not diligently studying for his medical degree, he helped with household chores. The deeply religious student, the court heard, was a credit to his family and the well-heeled community of northwestern Sydney where he lived.

Both were stunned when Mr Ul-Haque was charged this month with training in a camp run by banned terrorist organisation Laskar-e-Taiba. It was the first time the war on terrorism had reached these prosperous suburbs.

Since then, his family and community have rallied together, livid that such an unlikely person has been targeted by anti-terrorism investigators.

To show support, former teachers, a school counsellor, hockey coach, students and family packed a local court during his application for bail this week from solitary confinement in the nation's most secure prison.

"We were so appalled that someone of this calibre should have been thrown in jail," says a former principal of North Sydney Boys High School, where Mr Ul-Haque attended his final years of schooling.

"Terrorism wins an awful victory when we are prepared to destroy a young person's reputation and future on the flimsy grounds which have landed ... Ul-Haque in this present situation," Bernard Newsom continues in his affidavit to the court.

"After 36 years of teaching, one can identify the gems among the young people ... Izhar is one of those gems."

Mr Ul-Haque lives with one of his two accountant brothers in the middle-class suburb of Glenwood, where quarter-acre blocks, manicured lawns and double garages thrive.

His family settled in Australia in 1999 after visiting several times. But his father has since returned to Pakistan, unable to find work here.

An award-winning student, Mr Ul-Haque gained a university entrance score of 99.7 and wanted to become the first doctor in his family.

A sensitive person, his brothers say in affidavits that he has a wicked sense of humour that reminds them of comedian and talkshow host Andrew Denton.

But frustration set in after he failed his second year at the University of NSW. Visiting his father in Pakistan in January 2003, he wrote him a letter outlining his distaste for Westerners and his desire to join a jihad and die a martyr, the court heard.

His alarmed father and brother went to the camp, where he was training for three weeks in combat and weaponry, to try to send him home. In an apparent change of heart, he later returned to Sydney to resume his studies.


ASIO pays family $4000 for bungle
By Rory Callinan
May 01, 2004
ASIO has paid $4000 compensation to the wife of detained terror suspect Mamdouh Habib for breaking the family's personal computer.

But allegations that the agency's spies stole $12,000 in cash from the Habibs' Sydney home have been dismissed for lack of evidence.

An official investigation into the allegations was launched after then inspector-general of intelligence and security Bill Blick received complaints about ASIO's conduct during the September 20, 2001, raid.

Mr Habib's wife, Maha, claimed that ASIO had seized the family's computer and then broken it when re-installing the hard drive before sending it back.

She also alleged $7000 had gone missing immediately after the raid and, a week later, another $5000, hidden in some clothing, had disappeared in a sophisticated break-in using glass-cutters.

The family's lawyer, Stephen Hopper, confirmed yesterday that ASIO had paid out about $4000 for the damage to the computer.

"That (payment) was quite generous. They removed the hard drive for their purposes to analyse things and they put it back and ... didn't follow

the proper procedure," he said.

Mr Hopper said the spies watchdog had dismissed complaints about money being stolen because of a lack of evidence.

He said Mrs Habib, whose husband is one of two Australians being held in the US's terror suspect prison in Cuba, was very disappointed.

"Apparently there was no direct evidence saying, 'I saw this person put the money in their pocket'," Mr Hopper said.

"Maha saw a particular officer going through where (the money) was, and then that money was found to have disappeared."

Mr Hopper said Mrs Habib had been particularly concerned about the sophisticated nature of the break-in. "A glass-cutter was used and not the normal modus operandi was used. The glass was taken from the scene and even the police said it was a very professional job.

"The money had been put in a very secret place and the person who broke in went straight to it. A few things were thrown around, a PlayStation was missing and it looked like they made a beeline for the money."