Brother accused of plane bomb plot tried to stop attack, court told

One of the brothers accused of plotting to blow up a plane with a bomb hidden in a meat mincer was actually acting to “prevent” a terrorist attack from occurring, a court has heard.

One of the brothers accused of plotting to blow up a plane with a bomb hidden in a meat mincer was actually acting to “prevent” a terrorist attack from occurring, a court has heard.

The major claim came during the second day of NSW Supreme Court trials for brothers Khaled Mahmoud Khayat, 51, of Lakemba and Mahmoud Khayat, 34, of Punchbowl.

Both are accused of plotting to blow up an Etihad flight using a bomb hidden in a meat mincer and also planning to use poisonous gas in a confined public space in 2017.

They allegedly conspired with their older brother Tarek, who was part of Islamic State and living in Syria, along with a man only dubbed as The Controller.

Brothers Mahmoud Khayat and Khaled Khayat are accused of plotting to blow up a plane with a bomb hidden in a meat mincer. Picture: Vincent De Gouw

Khaled’s barrister Richard Pontello told the court that his client wanted to get his older brother Tarek “off his back” and he thought if he kept refusing his brother would get “someone else to do it”.

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“As he told the police they (Tarek and the Controller) kept on asking him to get involved and he kept refusing,” Mr Pontello told a jury of nine women and three men on Tuesday.

“He wanted to get Tarek off his back, to the point where he was hoping Tarek would actually be killed in the conflict over there so the whole thing would go away and he would be left alone.

“Khaled thought that his brother would get someone else to do it and potentially a terrorist act would be committed.

“He didn’t want that to happen.”

It has been alleged that the bomb, concealed in the meat mincer, was put inside a third brother, Amer’s luggage but had to be removed during check-in at Sydney International Airport on July 15, 2017, because it was too heavy.

The court heard Khaled Khayat tried to stop the terror plot.

Khaled Khayat wanted to get his older brother off his back.

Mr Pontello said that Khaled, who drove with Amer and Mahmoud to the airport that day, never actually took the bomb there.

“He never actually took the bomb to the airport,” Mr Pontello said.

“As far as he is concerned the bomb was never going to make it on the plane.”

Mr Pontello said the defence case would be the “polar opposite” of what was being alleged.

Mahmoud’s barrister Bruce Walmsley QC said that while Khaled had made admissions to police about his alleged involvement his client had denied it.

“He went out to the airport with two of his brothers to see one of them off and he was not aware that one of his brothers was intending to murder the other brother by putting a bomb in his hand luggage,” he said.

Mahmoud Khayat is led out of a Lakemba property in towel with police. Picture: 9 News

Mr Walmsley said that they were a close family and culturally it was expected that if his brother asked for help it would happen.

“You will not be satisfied that Mahmoud Khayat’s relationship with Islam is a kind which demonstrates motivation to commit horrific crimes,” he said.

Crown Prosecutor Lincoln Crowley QC had earlier told the jury that when Khaled was arrested by police they found a note inside his wallet with the “correct” equations and figures needed to make lethal amounts of poisonous gas.

“(It) had written on it in Arabic some words and numbers and symbols,” he said.

The trial before Justice Christine Adamson continues.