Deal offered to terror suspect
From: <http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/?from=ni_story> By Martin Chulov in Beirut December 05, 2005 Saleh Jamal / File Saleh Jamal ... Australia is a 'sick place', he says / File POLICE have offered fugitive terror suspect Saleh Jamal a deal to return to Australia if he turns informant on six men he is alleged to have recruited to jihad and pleads guilty to planning an attack on Sydney Harbour. >From the prison north of Beirut where he is serving five years on weapons charges, Jamal told The Australian that three officers - two linked to the NSW Police counter-terrorism command and another from the Australian Federal Police - visited him two months ago to make the offer, which involved him serving at least 10 years in a NSW prison. Jamal said the six men were close friends, but denied urging them to launch a strike attack in Australia before he left for Lebanon on a false passport in April last year. "These guys are people I know well," he said. "We all pray at the Ahl Sunnah Wahl Jemaah (the prayer room in Haldon Street, Lakemba, in Sydney's southwest). They are good men." Jamal was considered central to the early stages of alleged terror plots in Sydney. He had bought a 9m runabout and was accused of conducting surveillance on harbour sites, such as Walsh Bay, the Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Shell oil refinery. On New Year's Eve 2003, police had expected a group linked to Jamal to have used the runabout to launch a bombing attack. No explosives were found and no one was charged. At the time he fled Australia, Jamal was the key target of a counter-terror investigation, which later grew into Operation Pendennis, which led to 18 men being charged with terrorism-related offences after police swooped on houses in Sydney and Melbourne in November. Speaking through a reinforced plastic window at Beirut's maximum security Romieh Prison, Jamal said he was "30 per cent likely" to have launched an attack in Australia before he fled. However, he claimed he would now definitely try to mount a strike, if he could. "The Australian Government has been chasing me for three years. If they try to take me to Australia, I will crash a plane into the Harbour Bridge myself," Jamal said. "The police said to me they could get me out of prison right now if I agreed to inform. They said they could give me a 60 per cent sentence reduction if I pleaded guilty to planning to attack Sydney Harbour, and recruiting those guys to terrorism. They also wanted me to plead guilty to the Lakemba police station shooting (in 1998)." A senior Federal Government official confirmed last night that police had visited Jamal and put to him "several alternatives" that involved him returning to Australia. The terms of any final deal would need to be ratified by Commonwealth lawyers and the Government of Lebanon. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock last night described Jamal's claims as "an operational matter and not something I would comment on one way or another". Jamal says he fled Sydney to escape facing trial for the police station shooting. He was on bail awaiting trial at the time and confirmed he had discovered radical Islam just before he was released from prison. He denied an Australian Federal Police claim that he had intended to die as a suicide bomber in Lebanon, before he was caught at Beirut airport en route to Paris. "All I wanted to do was disappear in Europe, where they could never find me," he said. In a wide-ranging interview, Jamal confirmed he supported violent jihad against groups that opposed Islam. He also claimed there were "not enough real men" in Australia to launch a strike in the name of Islam. "Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are good men," he continued. "I support their cause, but not always their methods." He said he had declined the NSW offer and was prepared to take his chances in Lebanon, where prosecutors are trying to upgrade his charges to terrorism. If successful, their appeal before Lebanon's military court would result in at least a doubling of his sentence. The court was due to hear the appeal last Tuesday, but was adjourned until January. The Federal Government has indicated it will seek Jamal's extradition to Australia when he is freed from Lebanon. Jamal admitted to a broad criminal background, centring on drug-dealing in Sydney's southwest. He said he had renounced his past and was committed to a form of Islam that espoused many of the beliefs of the Wahabi sect, which urges the introduction of Sharia Islamic law and the introduction of a Taliban-like state. He said he admired his brother Ahmed Jamal, who was arrested in a Kurdish area of northern Iraq last December and charged with terrorism. He described his brother as "a real man". "I never want to go back to Australia. All I want is for my wife and child to come here to me, but the Government will not let her out of the country. "Australia is like a paradise in many ways, but it is a sick place." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back! http://us.click.yahoo.com/g0CDCD/tzNLAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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