Chilling moment would-be terrorists Mahmoud and Khaled Khayat try to check-in to airport
When police interviewed failed terrorist Mahmoud Khayat about his plan to blow up a flight departing Sydney, all he could do was feign surprise, but the moments leading up to what could have been Australia’s worst terror attack were all caught on camera.
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When police interviewed failed terrorist Mahmoud Khayat about his plan to blow up a flight departing Sydney all he could do was feign surprise.
The would-be mass killer is seen stroking his beard while speaking with investigators shortly after his arrest in July 2017.
He and older brother Khaled had concealed a bomb in a meat grinder and doll.
They had then placed it in the luggage of another brother, Amer, and taken him to Sydney airport.
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He was to die in the explosion along with everyone else on board.
But the bomb was removed because Amer’s luggage — with the doll and meat grinder inside — was overweight.
“In a toy?” Mahmoud asks police, vision released by the court shows.
“We believe that was a bomb,” police say to him.
“Yeah?” Mahmoud responds incredulously.
Amer continued on to Abu Dhabi and was eventually arrested and locked up in Lebanon.
It would take two years for a military court to determine he had no knowledge of the plot and he was released late last week.
That same day Mahmoud was found guilty by a NSW Supreme Court Jury.
Khaled had been found guilty in May in an earlier trial.
Two of the brothers are seen hauling the bomb into the airport on CCTV footage.
Hundreds of lives were narrowly saved but Mahmoud did his best to convince police he and Khaled never dreamt up the violent plot.
“Sorry I’m laughing … I’m shocked, what’s happening here?” He tells them
“I swear on my life, kids, (Khaled) never spoke to me about anything like that.”
But sermons found on the brothers’ phones revealed their true intent.
“Oh God the sky is your sky and the land is your land and the seas are your seas,” it read.
“Oh god bring down the aeroplanes and drown their battleships.”
Police swooped on the brothers not long after — but they’d already started plotting another attack using poison gas.
The court had heard a fourth brother, Tarek, had been co-ordinating the plans from Syria using his connections with ISIS.
He has since been captured.
Mahmoud and Khaled are now facing life in prison and will be sentenced at a later date.
Amer remains in Lebanon, hoping to return to Australia.
Originally published as Chilling moment would-be terrorists Mahmoud and Khaled Khayat try to check-in to airport
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