Posted on 09/01/2006 11:25:46 PM PDT by Mount Athos
Eleven Melbourne men accused of plotting a terrorist attack in Australia were committed Friday to stand trial.
The 11 were among 13 picked up in Melbourne in November over what police said was a 'significant threat' to Australia.
Committal hearings for the remaining two are to be held at a later date.
The men are all followers of Algerian-born Abdul Nacer Benbrika, a radical Melbourne cleric who also had acolytes in Sydney, eight of whom were arrested at the same time.
The 11 are charged with being members of a terrorist organization, and some are charged with funding a terrorist organization. They face prison sentences of up to 25 years.
Seven of the 11 refused to stand when directed to by the magistrate who read out their charges and asked for their pleas.
None of the defendants entered pleas Friday, but their attorneys had said earlier that their clients deny the charges laid against them.
Police alleged that the eight arrested in Sydney were part of a terrorist cell and had stockpiled enough chemicals to make 15 large bombs and could have been just days away from striking targets in Australia's largest city.
Only two Australians have so far been convicted of terrorism offences.
Jack Roche, a British-born Muslim convert, is three years into a nine-year sentence after pleading guilty in a Perth court to plotting a truck bombing of the Israeli embassy in Canberra. Roche was picked up in the raids that followed the bombings in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2002 in which 88 Australians were among the 202 people killed.
A Pakistan-born architect was jailed for a minimum of 15 years earlier this month for plotting a terrorist attack. The court in Sydney found that Faheem Khalid Lodhi intended to 'instil terror into members of the public.'
Lodhi, 36, had maps of Sydney's electrical grid, aerial photographs of military bases and instructions for making explosives.
Australia updated its terrorism laws last year so that cases could be brought against those thought to be plotting a terrorist attack who might not have fixed on a specific target.
Last week, a Melbourne taxi driver who trained with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan had a five-year jail sentence quashed on appeal. Joseph Thomas had been found guilty of receiving al-Qaeda funds and holding a false passport.
The 32-year-old convert to Islam admitted he attended an al-Qaeda military training camp in Afghanistan in the months before September 11, 2001, where he met bin Laden. As many as 100 Australians are believed to have trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Muslims in a terror plot. Carl Rove's doing and of course Bush's fault.
Find 'em...kill 'em.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.