Gary Hughes | November 20, 2008
A HOME-grown Melbourne Muslim terror cell was no less dangerous because it was "tin pot" with a relatively small membership and few financial resources, a court was told today.
"You don't need a lot of money to make a big bomb," Crown prosecutor Nicholas Robinson told a Victorian Supreme Court pre-sentencing hearing for seven convicted members of the group.
Mr Robinson said the fact that a group had not been declared a proscribed terrorist organisation under federal anti-terrorism laws did not make it less dangerous.
It simply meant the group had not yet been identified and gained notoriety.
Mr Robinson was responding to a submission by defence barrister Michael Croucher that joining an unknown "tin pot crowd" was a less serious than joining an organisation such as al-Qa'ida with a "horrific track record" of terrorist attacks.
But Mr Robinson said it was "just not so" that a home-grown group was any less dangerous.
Although the group led by self-proclaimed cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika had relatively limited financial resources, it was working at increasing them through stealing cars, credit card fraud and receiving regular contributions from members, Mr Robinson said.
Mr Croucher said his client, Abdullah Merhi, 23, should receive no more than four years in jail because he had renounced Benbrika's "putrid views" and left the group in mid-1985, five months before he was arrested.
But Mr Robinson said there was evidence in secretly taped conversations that Merhi was a member of the group right up until his arrest.
Merhi is one of seven Melbourne Muslim men convicted in September of belonging to the Benbrika terrorist cell, which the original trial was told plotted to attack the AFL Grand Final at the MCG in 2005.
Merhi was found not guilty of providing resources to the group by offering to be a suicide bomber.
The pre-sentencing hearing for the seven men is continuing.
A HOME-grown Melbourne Muslim terror cell was no less dangerous because it was "tin pot" with a relatively small membership and few financial resources, a court was told today.
"You don't need a lot of money to make a big bomb," Crown prosecutor Nicholas Robinson told a Victorian Supreme Court pre-sentencing hearing for seven convicted members of the group.
Mr Robinson said the fact that a group had not been declared a proscribed terrorist organisation under federal anti-terrorism laws did not make it less dangerous.
It simply meant the group had not yet been identified and gained notoriety.
Mr Robinson was responding to a submission by defence barrister Michael Croucher that joining an unknown "tin pot crowd" was a less serious than joining an organisation such as al-Qa'ida with a "horrific track record" of terrorist attacks.
But Mr Robinson said it was "just not so" that a home-grown group was any less dangerous.
Although the group led by self-proclaimed cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika had relatively limited financial resources, it was working at increasing them through stealing cars, credit card fraud and receiving regular contributions from members, Mr Robinson said.
Mr Croucher said his client, Abdullah Merhi, 23, should receive no more than four years in jail because he had renounced Benbrika's "putrid views" and left the group in mid-1985, five months before he was arrested.
But Mr Robinson said there was evidence in secretly taped conversations that Merhi was a member of the group right up until his arrest.
Merhi is one of seven Melbourne Muslim men convicted in September of belonging to the Benbrika terrorist cell, which the original trial was told plotted to attack the AFL Grand Final at the MCG in 2005.
Merhi was found not guilty of providing resources to the group by offering to be a suicide bomber.
The pre-sentencing hearing for the seven men is continuing.
Source: The Australian
 |
Posts
