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Australian jihad plotters jailed for up to 28 years

15 February 2010 20:26 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Five men convicted of plotting a terrorist attack in Australia will spend between 23 to 28 years in prison after a Sydney judge handed them the maximum sentences for their crimes, APA reports quoting telegraph.co.uk web-page.
Justice Anthony Whealy of the New South Wales Supreme Court said he had little hope that the men, aged 25 to 44, could be rehabilitated, saying they were motivated by "intolerant, inflexible religious conviction" and had shown contempt for the Australian government, its leaders and laws.
In October last year, at the end of Australia’s longest ever trial, a jury found the Sydney men guilty of conspiring to commit a terrorist act or acts.
Their exact target or targets have never been identified. The men, Australian-born or naturalized citizens with Muslim immigrant backgrounds, had all pleaded not guilty to the charges.
During the 10-month trial, the court heard the five jihadists wanted to terrify and intimidate the Australian public and the government in retaliation for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A former associate of the suspects testified that the group had considered bombing an Australian Rules football final in Melbourne in 2005, which was was attended by almost 92,000 people. Prosecutors said they had also discussed killing former Prime Minister John Howard.
The Crown argued each of the men had been a party to stockpiling chemicals to make explosives and had "step-by-step instructions on how to make bombs capable of causing large-scale death and destruction."
The men had been in pursuit of "violent jihad which involved the application of extreme force and violence, including the killing of those who did not share the fundamentalist ... extremist, beliefs," prosecutors said.
The court heard that three of the men had gone on paramilitary-style camps in far western New South Wales to prepare for an attack, but the defence claimed the men were simply on a camping trip.
The jury was also told that one of the accused had attended a paramilitary training camp in Pakistan run by the terrorist organisation, Lashkar-e-Toiba, but a key FBI witness told the court he could not be sure it was the man.
Police had also found weapons in the Sydney home of the accused ringleader, along with enough ammunition to keep firing for 37 hours. During sentencing, Judge Whealy said the men, whose identity he suppressed, regarded their imprisonment as a badge of honour.
The judge referred to the chemicals, weapons and ammunition they stockpiled. He said the men had material that glorified Osama Bin Laden and graphic images of violence involving hostages.
"One particular feature of this trial was the fact that a considerable volume of extremist material was held by each offender in common with the other conspirators," he said.
He gave the men non-parole periods ranging from 17 to 21 years. The men smiled at each other after the judge left the court.