A Muslim activist who calls himself an ayatollah faces up to 14 years in prison after allegedly sending offensive letters to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, police said yesterday.
Sheik Haron, who also uses the name Ayatollah Manteghi Boroujerdi, was charged on Tuesday with using the postal system to “menace, harass or cause offense” by sending the letters to the relatives of Australian casualties, an Australian Federal Police statement said.
The Iranian-born Haron, 45, did not enter a plea when he appeared in a Sydney court on Tuesday on seven counts of sending offensive letters. Each charge carries a potential maximum sentence of two years in prison. He was released on bail and told to report back on Nov. 10.
Australia has lost 11 soldiers in Afghanistan since joining the US-backed invasion in 2001. Police would not say how many families of those casualties received mail from Haron. The letters accused the dead soldiers of being “criminals,” “killers” and “murderers” fighting a war of invasion, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported.
“A Jewish man who kills innocent Muslim civilians is not a pig, he is a thousand times worse,” said one letter, sent to the Jewish family of 30-year-old Private Greg Sher, who was killed by a Taliban rocket in January, the Australian newspaper reported.
Sher’s father, Felix Sher, said the family was shocked by the letter, but told the Fairfax Radio Network on Thursday: “There is no point in getting angry or upset, nothing is going to be achieved by it.”
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he would consider legislation that would prevent future immigrants like Haron remaining in Australia.
“I think people — I think their stomachs turn” at the allegations against Haron, Rudd told reporters.
Haron is a prolific letter writer and runs a Web site that has occasionally landed him in the headlines.
He reportedly wrote to Rudd in February claiming that wildfires that killed 173 people that month were retribution for Australian support of the execution in Indonesia of militants convicted of the deadly 2002 Bali nightclub bombings.
Islamic community leaders said he was a fringe dweller in the Muslim community among Australia’s Christian majority.
“What he says reflects his own personal opinion and does not reflect the opinions of the Muslim public in Australia,” said Mohamed Mehio, a spokesman for the Islamic High Council of Australia.
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