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.
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago yesterday, in a further tightening of a years-long campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Relatives of the victims visited the cemetery on the anniversary for more than 30 years to read memorial statements with police keeping watch, Amnesty International said. Hundreds of people,
RSS