Posted on 10/30/2006 5:32:53 AM PST by Dark Skies
Just as Sydney's Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly takes leave after his comments about women, the spotlight fell on comments by a Melbourne cleric, Sheik Mohammed Omran.
Sheik Omran reportedly told his flock on Friday judges discriminate against Muslim rapists.
He said rapes committed by Australian non-Muslims such as bikies or football stars were treated more leniently than those committed by Muslims, The Australian reports.
“I feel there is no justice here. Not 60 years and someone else three years, and they did the same crime. Why?,” Sheik Omran told worshippers at his Brunswick mosque.
“They make a big fuss about these kids because one of them, his name is Mohamed.
“Even if you kill someone you don't go for 60 years.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Don't like it? Leave!
Interesting wrap-up:
Sheik Hilaly has asked for indefinite leave from his duties as Australia's senior Muslim cleric.
On a dramatic day in which he collapsed and was rushed to hospital, the strain was showing on the religious leader whose comments comparing immodestly dressed women to pieces of meat have ignited a firestorm of controversy.
The sheik collapsed with chest pains during a meeting with Muslim leaders at Sydney's Lakemba Mosque that was to have decided his future.
Then go back to your own Country. There, the victim is stoned to death and the rapist goes free!
“I feel there is no justice here. Not 60 years and someone else three years, and they did the same crime. Why?,” Sheik Omran told worshippers at his Brunswick mosque.
Seems to me all these Muslims do is whine and moan about EVERYTHING. If they don't like the justice of the countries they've moved to then they ought to go back to where they came from.
Of course, that's going to make them much easier to find and deal with when the rain starts.
These imams are irritated because rape is one of the fringe benefits of islam.
A lesson to us all, perhaps.
Regards, Ivan
Good to see you!
Briton backs imam in 'uncovered meat' rowONE of Britain’s most senior Muslims has defended as “a great scholar” the Australian imam who likened scantily clad women to uncovered meat that draws predators.
Abduljalil Sajid, a senior figure in the Muslim Council of Britain, offered support for Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali’s views, saying that “loose women like prostitutes” encouraged men to be immoral. Dr Sajid, visiting Australia, said that Sheikh al-Hilali was attacking immodesty and loose dress, or “standing in the streets, inviting men to do these bad acts”.
Although the Australian cleric did not use the word prostitute, but appeared to be attacking women wearing revealing clothes, Dr Sajid said that the sermon had been taken out of context. Referring to the thrust of the Sheikh’s argument, he said: “So what is wrong in it? Who will object to that?” Dr Sajid, who is on a speaking tour, met the controversial Sheikh at his Sydney mosque yesterday...
...After meeting him yesterday, Dr Sajid said: “As far as I am concerned he is a great scholar and he has a great knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence....”
Background on the so called moderate "Muslim Council of Britain" -
MCB's Inayat Bunglawala Defends Islamic Supremacism
MCB's Bunglawala: Do As We Say, And Nobody Gets Hurt
Downing Street's Favorite – The Muslim Council of Britain - by Daniel Pipes
The Rape Jihad By Robert Spencer.“Each of us was raped by between three and six men….One woman refused to have sex with them, so they split her head into pieces with an axe in front of us.”
This happened in Darfur, from which Sudanese military personnel actually airlifted women to Khartoum to serve as sex slaves.
Meanwhile, Indira Dzetskelova, the mother of one of the child hostages in Beslan, Russia, reports that “several 15-year-old girls were raped by terrorists.” Her daughter “heard their terrible cries and screams when those monsters took them away.”
This indicates that there are two things the massacre in Beslan have in common with the ongoing massacres in Darfur: both, no less than the 9/11 attacks, are examples of Islamic jihad terrorism, and both are characterized by rape.
The jihadist element has been made clear by the ringleaders of both atrocities. Sudanese General Mohamed Beshir Suleiman recently declared: “The door of the jihad is still open and if it has been closed in the south it will be opened in Darfur.” In southern Sudan, of course, the jihad was waged against Christians; in Darfur, the targets are black African Muslims whose Islamic bona fides don’t satisfy Khartoum. As for Beslan, the Chechen jihadist leader Shamil Besayev warned the Russian government last winter: “Praise Allah, we are dreaming of dying in jihad, we are dreaming of dying on the way of Allah, so that we could earn paradise and mercy of Allah.”
What does rape, then, have to do with these religious conflicts? Unfortunately, everything. The Islamic legal manual ‘Umdat al-Salik, which carries the endorsement of Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, stipulates: “When a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman’s previous marriage is immediately annulled.” Why? So that they are free to become the concubines of their captors. The Qur’an permits Muslim men to have intercourse with their wives and their slave girls: “Forbidden to you are ... married women, except those whom you own as slaves” (Sura 4:23-24).
After one successful battle, Muhammad tells his men, “Go and take any slave girl.” He took one for himself also. After the notorious massacre of the Jewish Qurayzah tribe, he did it again. According to his earliest biographer, Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad “went out to the market of Medina (which is still its market today) and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for [the men of Banu Qurayza] and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches.” After killing “600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900,” the Prophet of Islam took one of the widows he had just made, Rayhana bint Amr, as another concubine.
Emerging victorious in another battle, according to a generally accepted Islamic tradition, Muhammad’s men present him with an ethical question: “We took women captives, and we wanted to do ‘azl [coitus interruptus] with them.” Muhammad told them: “It is better that you should not do it, for Allah has written whom He is going to create till the Day of Resurrection.’” When Muhammad says “it is better that you should not do it,” he’s referring to coitus interruptus, not to raping their captives. He takes that for granted.
With Muhammad revered throughout the Islamic world as al-insan al-kamil, the perfect man, the rapes of Darfur and Beslan are nothing surprising. What is surprising, or ought to be, is the silence from the Islamic world about the rapes in both cases. Where are the reformers who will dare to say that Muhammad’s example must not be followed in this case? Who will acknowledge that the world has developed principles of human rights that must supercede those forged in seventh-century Arabia? Where are the Western spokesmen who are not so in thrall to multiculturalism that they will condemn rape that is justified according to Islamic religious principles? The much-lionized “Muslim Martin Luther,” Tariq Ramadan, now banned from entering the U.S., can so far only bring himself to call for a moratorium, not a definitive ban, on stoning for adulterers. Rape of captives? His sentiments are not known. Where is the Muslim Solzhenitsyn, who will speak honestly about the aspects of Islam that so desperately need reform, and call for the overhaul that the system so obviously needs?The whole world is waiting. But for the girls and women of Darfur and Beslan, it is already too late.
Rape: Nothing to do with Islam?I got some comments, among others from Norwegian blogger Bjørn Stærk, to my posts about the Norwegian government covering up the number of rapes committed by immigrants. The Swedish government is probably even worse, but Sweden is in many ways collapsing. Although he agreed that the statistics should be published, he questioned whether these rapes have anything to do with Islam. It is true that mass rapes of "the enemy's women", in part to humiliate the enemy's men, is not unique to Islam. It has been done at times of war by the Vikings, the Mongols, the Germans and the Russians during WW2, and all the way up to the Balkans in the 1990s. That's also my point. The number of rapes committed by Muslim immigrants in Western nations are so extremely high that it is difficult to view them only as random acts of individuals. It resembles warfare. This happens in most Western European countries, as well as in other infidels countries such as India. In Bradford, England, Channel 4 pulled a documentary about Pakistani and other Muslim men sexually abusing white English girls, some as young as 11. Writer Theodore Dalrymple thinks that "thanks to their cultural inheritance, (Muslim) abuse of women is systematic rather than unsystematic as it is with the whites and blacks." In France, grotesque reports about systematic gang rapes of French or "too Western" Muslim girls keep coming in. At the same time, European jails are getting filled up with Muslims imprisoned for robberies and all kinds of violent crimes, and Muslims bomb European civilians. You can see the mainstream media are struggling to make sense of all of this. That's because they can't, or don't want to, see the obvious: This is exactly how an invading army would behave. Rape, pillage and bomb.
I disagree that this has nothing to do with Islam. Muhammad himself had forced sex (rape) with several of his slave girls/concubines. This is perfectly allowed, both in the sunna and in the Koran. If you postulate that many of the Muslims in Europe view themselves as a conquering army and that European women are simply war booty, it all makes perfect sense and is in full accordance with Islamic law. And Muslims do follow their medieval religious laws, even today....
Mooslims add nothing to any Western nation, their religion is a step backward, and their women are for the most part ugly, but they are brought here to become part of the West's self-hating liberals battering ram.
I think the Sheik has already provided the answer to his own question:
According to him, Muslim men have no more self-restraint around attractive women in Western dress than do feral cats around food. One has to use sterner measures to discipline irrational beasts than to discipline rational, even if violent, immoral and ill-behaved, human beings.
It was very insulting to Muslim men.
This guy wouldn't recognise justice if it bit him on the bum.
Sick! Sick! Sick!
Their religion was a step backward from the very beginning, but they've made it worse over the years: by prefering al-Ghazali and Ibn Hazn to Avecinna and Averroes, by deciding that later written verses of the Koran supercede earlier written verses, and by most of their sects and schools of interpretation deciding that the Hadith in which Mohammed called the struggle for inner purification the "greater jihad" and warfare against non-Muslims the "lesser jihad" is spurious.
http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/002682.html
here's the background to the mufti's remarks in his foul 'ramadan speech' :
Australia: Muslim Rape Gang Leader Smiles As He Is Sentenced
There is something deeply disturbing about this case. Rape is always something vile, violent and unconscionable. That it should happen in a gang of up to 14 members, when its youngest victim was 16, is bad enough. That the rapists are unrepentant, and with one Muslim "spokesman" now saying that the leaders of the gang should be "honoured and respected", makes the case more sickening still.
Last December, riots took place on Cronulla Beach between white gangs and Lebanese Muslim gangs. Mark Steyn commented that one fault of the riots lay in young Muslims' refusal to integrate. We quoted from his article:
In Sydney in 2002, the leader of a group of Lebanese-Australian Muslim gang-rapists was sentenced to 55 years (halved on appeal).
The lads liked to tell the lucky lady that she was about to be "fucked Leb-style" and that she deserved it because she was an "Australian pig". It was the sentence that was "controversial". As Monroe Reimers wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald: "As terrible as the crime was, we must not confuse justice with revenge. Where has this hatred come from? How have we contributed to it? Perhaps it's time to take a good hard look at the racism by exclusion practised with such a vengeance by our community and cultural institutions."
But for many Australians, the case of the rape gang led by Bilal Skaf (pictured above left) created nothing but rage and resentment at the brazenness of the perpetrators.
As Mark Steyn said, Bilal Skaf was sentenced on 15 August 2002 to 55 years' jail for leading a series of rapes which took place in and around Sydney in 2000. The sentencing report makes for grim reading. Justice Michael Finanne states that the gang's attacks were coordinated using cellular phones, and led to young girls being lured away, sometimes on the pretext of being taken off to smoke marijuana, and then being met by other youths in vehicles. The details of what the girls were subjected to are horrific. The sentencing report from 2002 is found at the foot of this article. It is graphic, and shocking.
Unfortunately, Bilal Skaf's conviction for the attack on their youngest victim, a 16-year old girl, which happened in Gosling Park, Greenacre, on August 12, 2000, was quashed in 2004. It was discovered that during the trial, two jurors had independently gone to the scene of the crime to conduct "their own investigations". As a result, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal overturned the convictions of Bilal Skaf and his younger brother Mohammed. Mohammed Skaf, previously unnamed because he had been a minor, was 17 at the time of the rape.
The victim of the Gosling Park rape attack had been too scared to once again confront her assailants, and at one stage charges were withdrawn. But laws were changed in New South Wales, and these allowed the victim to respond to the court in a retrial using her previous evidence from the 2002 trial. This was read out in question and answer form by a solicitor and a prosecutor.
According to the Melbourne Age, the retrial led to the two brothers being reconvicted of the Gosling Park rape incident in April of this year. 24-year old Bilal Skaf was found guilty on two counts of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent in company. Mohammed Skaf was convicted of being an accessory after the fact.
The two men were already convicted of the other rapes in which they had been involved, and were in prison, but on Friday (July 28), the two men were handed down their sentences. Mohammed Skaf was sentenced to 15 years' jail, with a minimum of seven and a half years to spent incarcerated, for his part in oranising the Gosling Park rape(s).
Jane Mathews, acting NSW Supreme Court judge, sentenced Bilal Skaf to a minimum of eleven years' jail, additional to the 22 years' minimum jail for the other rapes he committed.
Bilal Skaf briefly smiled when Justice Mathews sentenced him. When he was originally convicted in 2002, he had laughed. When he had received his sentence in 2002 he had sworn at the judge.
Justice Mathews said that the attack by 14 men was "cruel, callous and degrading".
Mohammed Skaf had befriended the 16 year old, known in court proceedings as Miss D. She had known him for six months, and her mother knew him. Skaf had suggested that they drive to the city center of Sydney. She went to get in the car for the drive at 9pm, and found two other men, Ibrahim and Michael, already inside the vehicle.
As they drove, the males had been using their mobile phones and conversing in Arabic. Before Miss D had got into the car, Mohammed had been talking to Bilal about the plan. The car was stopped at Gosling Park. The men tried to persuade the teenager to have sex with them, and Mohammed Skaf tried to use various plays to persuade her not to leave the car.
A car and a white van arrived. Mohammed then disappeared. Bilal Skaf tried to get Miss D to "go for a walk" with him, and when she refused he grabbed her by the hair and threw her onto the ground. With up to 14 associates holding the girl down, Bilal Skaf committed vaginal rape, and others digitally penetrated her. When Skaf had done, another man claimed it was his turn and raped her. One man held a gun to her head and kicked her in the stomach.
The girl, described by the judge in the 2002 trial as "exceptionally brave" then fled, and ran across the park to a telephone box. As she was in the phone box, the van drew up and one of the attackers drew a gun, ordering her to get in the van. She was screaming, and when a man came round the corner and walked forward, the gang fled. The man took her to his apartment and she phoned a friend who came to take her home.
The effect of the sentencing upon the two men means that Bilal Skaf will serve at least 32 years' jail for the three gang rape incidents. His earliest possible date for release will be February 11, 2033, when he will be 51. He could serve a maximum of 38 years. Mohammed Skaf will serve a minimum of eighteen and a half years, and will become eligible for parole on July 1, 2019, when he will be 36.
The mother of Miss D said outside the court: "I've spoken to my daughter today. She's very, very happy. She cried, she laughed. She's not here today, so obviously it has affected her to the point where she can't have anything to do with this."
"She'll never forget it but hopefully she'll be able to talk about it," the mother said. "They would not be sitting in jail this long if it was not for the new laws (which allowed Miss D to testify without confronting her assailants) and the media attention."
The nature of the three gang rapes, involving forced oral sex, shocked even prisoners. While Bilal Skaf had been originally confined in Long Bay Correctional Centre, there was a plot by other prisoners to inject him with blood tainted with the HIV virus. As a result, he was transferred to the maximum security Goulburn Gaol.
The dramas did not cease there. While he was residing in Goulburn Super-Max prison, in July 2003, telephone threats were made to the police, saying that if Bilal Skaf was not released within three days, staff at Goulburn Local Court would be shot.
During Skaf's stay in Goulburn, he came into contact with Zeky (Zak) Mallah, (pictured right). In December 2003, Mallah became the first person to be arrested (subsequently acquitted) under new terrorism laws. He served two years in jail for threatening to kill Commonwealth officers, but was acquitted on two charges of preparing for a terrorist act.
Details of Mallah's trial can be found here and here. He had allegedly plotted to shoot up the offices of the ASIO, the nation's intelligence agency, or the Foreign Affairs Department in Sydney, after he was refused a passport to travel to Lebanon in 2002. Mallah now acts as "spokesman" for the brothers.
Zeky Mallah, according to News/com.au and the Courier Mail, stood outside the Supreme Court, and delivered an impassioned eulogy to the two thug rapists. He said: "Bilal Skaf and Mohammed Skaf should be more honoured and respected for the crimes they committed, if they did, because at least these two have not killed any of the victims like the American soldiers have (in Iraq)."
"It is okay to label this young man and his brother as rapists who deserve 55 years more or less according to your judges, which in reality is life imprisonment."
"But it is not okay to label some American soldiers who rape innocent young Iraqi women as American rapists."
A fine example of Muslim logic. Because they did not kill their victims, then Mohammed and Bilal Skaf should be "honoured and respected".
I blame the poor example of the "prophet" for such hideous travesties of logic. Call a rapist paedophile, mass-murdering thief a "messenger of Allah", and you give his followers a green light to condone any atrocity.
Below is the sentencing report from 2002, by Justice Michael Finnane. It contains graphic descriptions of acts of rape and degradation. You have been warned...
And who is this Mohammed Omran?
Documents allege Al Qaeda contact with Australians
Reporter: Rafael Epstein
KERRY O'BRIEN: Whatever interpretation is placed on the verdict and sentence handed down to Abu Bakar Bashir last night, his 4-year jail term is unlikely to be seen as a deterrent to terrorist organisations.
As the Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta showed, terrorism remains a very real threat in this region.
The 7:30 Report has obtained court documents alleging telephone contact between two Australian-Muslim leaders and men in Europe described by authorities as senior Al Qaeda leaders.
The documents, including telephone intercepts, are the most detailed public evidence that allege contacts between Australians and the global terror network.
Melbourne spiritual leader Sheik Mohammed Omran, and Sydney Muslim youth leader Bilaal Khazaal, are linked by the documents with Spain's top Al Qaeda suspect, Abu Dahdah, who is accused of substantial role in the September 11 attacks.
The ABC has also learned that both men are persons of interest for the Australian Federal Police.
And the AFP has confirmed they have 70 ongoing investigations into Australians in relation to terrorism.
One of the Australian men denies any involvement in terror activities and the other would not comment.
But the AFP say they are aware of communications between the Spanish Al Qaeda chief and the two Australian men.
Rafael Epstein reports.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Sheik Mohammed Omran is the head of a group that is a minority fundamentalist group within Australia's Muslim community.
Originally from Jordan, he's been here for more than 18 years.
SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: I know the Australians.
If the media doesn't put so many rubbish things in their hearts, they are the most beautiful kind people.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Every Friday he preaches at this roughly furnished warehouse in inner Melbourne.
Now his name has been linked to Spain's top Al Qaeda suspect.
You know that the implication from the court documents is that you are effectively a member of Al Qaeda?
SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: That's great!
No, I don't know that.
And I don't believe I am.
Don't misunderstand me, but, really, I am what I am.
NEIL FERGUS, INTELLIGENCE CONSULTANT: There is no theological basis, either in these documents or in other material to justify the type of contact that we've seen.
So there are some serious question marks about why Sheik Mohammed Omran has had the Al Qaeda contacts.
Given his contact with Abu Dahdah and other Al Qaeda suspects, including a man in London, it is of grave concern to Australia and Australian security.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: According to telephone intercepts tendered in a Spanish court, Sheik Mohammed Omran is linked to a man named Abu Dahdah.
A Spanish court ordered his detention after presenting evidence that he twice met September 11 ring leader Mohammed Atar.
And that he has extensive links with Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia and extremist groups in Britain.
Abu Dahdah's diary is full of the names of men either wanted for terrorist activities or who are already being held on terror-related charges.
Court documents obtained by the 7:30 Report show Abu Dahdah made calls to Sheik Mohammed Omran regularly, that his name appeared often in Abu Dahdah's diary and that the relationship may have extended to face to face meetings.
In a conversation with a man who is now in custody in Guantanamo Bay Cuba, Abu Dahdah is reported saying, "Abu Aman was meant to see him a week ago.
That Abu Aman was going to see him in Spain in transit to Singapore."
But Sheik Mohammed Omran says he's never spoken or heard of Abu Dahdah.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Spanish telephone intercepts say he spoke and called you regularly.
SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: If this happened, then the Australian Government is not a stupid Government, they would come and ask me about that.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Well, I've been told that the Australian Federal Police are aware of those communications.
SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: Rubbish.
This is not true.
I am assure you if this happen, I will be the first to know about it from the Australian Government.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Jean Charles Brisard prepared a report for the UN Security Council on Al Qaeda funding and has also advised the French Government on terror groups.
After studying thousands of pages of the Spanish court documents, he brushes off Sheik Mohammed Omran's denials.
JEAN CHARLES BRISARD, TERRORISM INVESTIGATOR: His doctrine and religious beliefs are close to those of Abu Dahdah and others who make the core religious beliefs of Al Qaeda members.
I don't know if himself he is in close contact with Al Qaeda itself.
What I know for sure is that the organisation presides over or is chairman there in Australia voluntarily, again, sell propaganda coming from other entities, clearly directly related to Al Qaeda.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: But Sheik Mohammed Omran does admit a close relationship with another man mentioned in the court documents.
Have you heard of a man called Sheikh Homad.
SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: Yes, I know him.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Have you ever spoken to him?
SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: Yes.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: He is in jail at the moment.
SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: Of course I know that.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Abu Qatada is the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda in Europe, according to the British Government in May, the British said he had extensive contacts with senior terrorists worldwide.
Police found 18 videotapes of his sermons in a German apartment used by some of the September 11 hijackers.
He's in custody in Britain.
One organisation he's heavily involved with is the Salafist group for call and combat.
It's been listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian Government.
You could be breaking Australian law by trying to contact him or his associates.
Did you know that?
SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: First, Abu Qatada he is my friend before that and still my friend until today.
And until maybe the day we meet.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: You're still in contact with him?
SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: No, he's in jail.
How can you contact someone in jail?
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: With letters.
SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: Nothing reaches him anyhow and I don't.
What I am saying is he was my friend and he came and visited Australia.
Maybe you don't know that.
So he came and visited us here by the permission of our Government here.
So if anyone to blame, we should blame the Australian Government first for letting him in here.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Jean Charles Brisard says of the many men listed in the Spanish court documents, Sheik Mohammed Omran is worth attention because of the influence he has over his followers.
JEAN CHARLES BRISARD: His role and responsibility as far as the doctrine is involved is probably higher than anybody else.
Again, he is part of that stage of the life of the evolution of an extremist Muslim, where you come from an ideology to go to the jihad front.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The Spanish court documents also point to Abu Dahdah's other alleged Australian connection, Bilal Khazaal, who is the leader of Sydney's Islamic youth movement.
In June, 'Four Corners' reported Khazaal was the main focus of last year's CIA report on Al Qaeda's presence in Australia.
Bilal Khazaal did not want to speak to the 7:30 Report, but the Spanish telephone transcripts appear to show for the first time regular contacts between Khazaal and Abu Dahdah.
The court says they show Khazaal contacted Dahdah in 2001, seeking his help to gain entry into Europe for an alleged Al Qaeda operative.
Abu Dahdah then took care of this individual during his stay in Spain.
JEAN CHARLES BRISARD: The Spanish police and other services around the world have strong evidence that Bilal Khazaal has recruited people to train in Osama bin Laden-controlled training camps around the world in Kashmir and in Afghanistan.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The 7:30 Report is not suggesting that the two Australian Muslim leaders have done anything illegal and we're not suggesting that they're active members of a terror organisation.
But the Spanish court documents do detail more than casual contact between the two Australian men and the men in custody in Europe who are described as senior Al Qaeda leaders, although we don't know the detail of those contacts.
Such contacts, raising funds, and recruiting people for those groups, did not become illegal acts until after September 11, 2001, and after the alleged acts occurred.
The Australian Federal Police have confirmed to the 7:30 Report they're aware of the communications between the Australian men and the Spanish suspect.
The AFP has also confirmed they have 65 ongoing investigations into people potentially involved in terrorist activity.
That's one reason the head of intelligence for the Sydney Olympics, Neil Fergus, believes Khazaal and Omran will be high on the list of people ASIO will want to talk to under new anti-terror laws.
NEIL FERGUS: Individuals with that degree of contact and proven members of Al Qaeda, you would imagine that they would be high on the list to be the subject of the inquisitorial powers which have been enacted in the recent legislation.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: For now, Sheik Mohammed Omran says there's nothing wrong with his friendship with the man in British custody, Abu Qatada.
SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: I don't believe that anyone, whatsoever, any law can stop you making a personal friendship with anyone and I don't think Australia goes to that low to stop you making a friendship with anyone.
Even Osama bin Laden himself.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s938401.htm
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.