Australian Muslims convicted on terrorism charge (2nd Roundup)

Sep 15, 2008, 9:33 GMT

Sydney - An Australian cleric and five of his followers Monday were found guilty of forming a terrorist cell and face possible life terms when sentence is passed.

Four of the group of 12 Melbourne Muslims were declared innocent and two have yet to receive a verdict on the terrorism-related charges against them.

Algerian-born Abdul Nacer Benbrika, 48, told his followers it was 'permissible to kill women, children and the aged' and is alleged to have plotted with them to bomb the 100,000 spectators expected at the 2005 rugby cup final in Melbourne.

Islamic Council of Victoria spokesman Malcolm Thomas said justice had been served and that he and others among Australia's 350,000 Muslims welcomed the court decision.

'These people have carried out actions that are not in accordance with what our religion tells us,' Thomas told national broadcaster ABC. 'It troubles us that by association people will think that Muslims are prone to violence and acts of terrorism and that's a perception which is brought about obviously by cases like this and activities overseas.'

Thomas said the convictions might deter other Muslim youths being swayed by radical clerics into becoming militants.

Attorney General Robert McClelland welcomed the verdicts and praised the security agencies.

'Clearly a terrorist attack in Australia is possible and hence we have our security rating at the level of medium and indeed it would be naive not to recognize that such an attack could be perpetrated by home-grown terrorists,' he said.

During the six-month trial, the jury heard 50 witnesses and listened to excerpts from 482 secretly recorded conversations among men who declared they wanted to 'do something' to honour their religion.

Police said the group watched videos of beheadings in Iraq and read books glorifying the hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Centre in New York.

Remy Van de Wiel, Benbrika's lawyer, praised the impartiality of the jury.

'It's so wonderful to live in a democracy where a jury obviously pays this level of attention to matters like this and works this hard,' he told reporters outside the court.

He said his client described himself as a fundamentalist and predicted he would be jailed for espousing his religious views.

There has been no date set for sentencing.

The rounding up of Benbrica and his followers in 2005 came days after Australia updated its terrorism laws so that cases could be brought against those thought to be plotting a terrorist attack who may not have fixed on a specific target.

Prior to these convictions, only three Australians have been convicted of terrorism offences.

Jack Roche, a British-born Muslim convert, has been released after serving 4 years of a 9-year sentence for plotting the truck-bombing of the Israeli embassy in Canberra. He 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.

Pakistan-born architect Khalid Lodhi was jailed for a minimum of 15 years in 2006 for plotting a terrorist attack. Last week a Sydney court convicted former airport baggage-handler Belal Khazaal of publishing a terrorism how-to manual on the internet.