Alleged Jemaah Islamiyah chief Abu Bakar Bashir personally called off a planned bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Canberra, a British-born Islamic convert charged with plotting the attack told police.
The testimony from terror suspect Jack Roche was further evidence of Bashir's control of the Southeast Asian, al-Qaeda-linked terror group. In Indonesian custody suspected of terror links, Bashir has denied involvement in Jemaah Islamiyah.
Roche also claimed he went to the US consulate in Sydney and told authorities there, "I've met Osama bin Laden and they [al-Qaeda] have targets in mind,'' he said in taped interviews with police. He said the embassy directed him to Australia's spy agency, where he was not even able to get anybody to listen to his claims.
In videotaped interviews with police that led to his arrest in November 2002 and played yesterday in court, Roche said infighting between Australian members of Jemaah Islamiyah and the group's operations chief Hambali led to the collapse of the bombing plot.
Abdulrahman Ayub and his twin brother Abdulrahim Ayub, widely believed to have headed the terror group's Australian arm, were so incensed at Hambali's interference that they rang Bashir to complain, prompting Bashir to cancel the plot, Roche told detectives.
Roche has pleaded innocent to a charge of plotting to bomb the Israeli Embassy. He faces a maximum 25-year prison sentence if convicted.
In taped excerpts played in Perth District Court this week, Roche has repeatedly named Bashir as the head of al-Qaeda's Southeast Asian terror affiliate. He has also described how the Ayub brothers told him to travel to Malaysia to meet Hambali in early 2000.
Hambali then sent Roche -- 52, an Australian citizen who was born in Hull, England -- to Pakistan and Afghanistan where he briefly met Osama bin Laden and underwent explosives training, the court heard.
While there Roche was told to set up an al-Qaeda cell in Australia and launch attacks against Israeli targets. Hambali gave him US$8,000 to fund the attacks, he said.
On his return, Roche said he informed the Ayub twins about his plans. He said they were "miffed" at Hambali for interfering in Australian operations.
The twins were so angry they complained directly to Bashir, Roche said. Bashir was re-arrested in April on the day he finished serving an 18-month prison term for minor immigration offenses. Police in Indonesia say they have new evidence placing him at the head of Jemaah Islamiyah.
Bashir asked Roche to visit Indonesia to discuss the plot in July 2000, Roche said.
He told Roche "whatever Hambali's asked you to do, just carry on doing that ... whatever it happens to be."
But he said the Ayub brothers "must have whinged to Abu Bakar Bashir, because a few days later I got a call from him telling me to stop whatever I was doing."
By that time, Roche said he'd started "to sober up from this whole experience" and tried to tell Australian spies about the plot, but was ignored.
"I couldn't seem to get past the front desk," Roche said.
Both the Ayub brothers are believed to have fled to Indonesia following raids in November 2002 by Australian police and intelligence agencies in several cities. Roche was arrested during those raids, which came in the aftermath of bombings that killed 202 people on the Indonesian island of Bali.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS