A teenage suspect discussed with a British accomplice packing a kangaroo with explosives before setting it loose on Australian police officers, prosecutors alleged yesterday.
The Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday ordered Sevdet Ramadan Besim to stand trial in the Victoria Supreme Court on charges that he planned an Islamic State (IS) group-inspired terrorist attack at an ANZAC Day ceremony that included targeting police officers in April last year.
Besim, 19, pleaded not guilty to four charges relating to a plot to attack commemorative services in Melbourne or the neighboring city of Dandenong to mark ANZAC Day, the annual April 25 commemoration of the 1915 Gallipoli landings in Turkey.
The campaign was the first major military campaign fought by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I and hundreds of thousands attend commemoration services around Australia.
Besim faces a potential life sentence in prison if convicted. He and four alleged conspirators were arrested in Melbourne a week before ANZAC Day. He has been in custody since.
Prosecutors alleged in court documents that Besim discussed with a British-based accomplice in online conversations that a kangaroo could be packed with explosives, painted with “the IS symbol” and set loose on police.
Besim was also accused of planning to use a car to run over, then behead, a police officer.
He allegedly said in online communications he was “ready to fight these dogs on their doorstep.”
“I’d love to take out some cops,” he wrote. “I was gonna [going to] meet with them then take some heads.”
Police allege Besim was motivated by an extremist ideology and had expressed support for terrorist organizations, particularly the IS movement.
A British court in October sentenced a 15-year-old boy from Blackburn, England, for his part in the ANZAC Day plot.
In passing sentence in the Manchester Crown Court, Judge John Saunders said the teenager, who cannot be named because of his age, would only be released when he was no longer a danger to the public.
Saunders handed down a life sentence with no chance of parole for five years.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was