Trio jailed over foiled Federation Square terror plot
A 2016 Christmas day jihad plot would have been the most devastating terror attack ever staged on Australian soil — if it had succeeded. And now, the men behind the plot will spend decades in prison.
National
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A trio of terror wannabes who plotted a Christmas Day massacre will spend between 22 and 38 years in prison for plotting a sickening attack in the heart of Melbourne.
Abdullah Chaarani, Ahmed Mohamed and Hamza Abbas faced life imprisonment over their evil plot in which they hoped to slaughter scores of innocent Victorians as payback for Australia’s war on Islamic State.
It would have been the most devastating terror attack ever staged on Australian soil.
Sentencing the men today, Supreme Court judge Justice Christopher Beale said they had each embraced Islamic State’s hateful ideology.
“Your views were so warped by Islamic State ideology that you came to believe that the mass slaughter of innocent civilians … would be a glorious act pleasing to Allah,” he said.
“The stupidity of that belief was only matched by its malevolence.”
Chaarani and Mohamed were each sentenced to 26 years imprisonment.
But because they are each already serving sentences it means their total effective sentence is now 38 years, with a non parole period of 28 years and six months.
Abbas was sentenced to with a non-parole period of 22 years and sixteen years and six months.
The trio was convicted more than a year ago of preparing for a terrorist act, and since then Mohamed and Chaarani have been convicted and sentenced over a terror attack on a suburban mosque.
But it was their plot to stage a city jihad that would have rocked Melbourne to its core.
Federation Square, St Paul’s Cathedral and Flinders St Station had all been earmarked as potential attack sites, with the group conducting reconnaissance of the sites.
The plot was masterminded by Ibrahim Abbas, the older brother of Hamza, who pleaded guilty over his involvement.
He testified at the trial of his three co-conspirators in an apparent effort to distance them from the plot.
“I was forcing them that we should, um, wear vests, explosive vests and then, um, we’re gunna ram a policeman and get his gun and then I was gunna give that gun to whoever I deemed fit to use the gun and then we were gunna go to the city square and, um, I was gunna just – whoever I see I was gunna chop and chopping to kill,” Ibrahim Abbas later told police.
Ibrahim detailed the plot in chilling detail during his court testimony.
“I wanted to make sure that the casualties would be high, the bigger the better,” he said.
“The bigger the more terror is achieved, and that’s the point.
“I believed that if I could do a terrorist attack here then that would prevent the Australian government from financing the war against Islamic State, and it would sent a clear message to the Australian public about the damage, the loss of lives, that occurs in the Muslim world where the Australian government is financing the war against Islamic State.”
The group was unaware it was under extreme covert surveillance before their ultimate arrest on December 22, 2016, when authorities feared the were days away from acting on their plot.
They have been in custody since that date.
Mohamed and Chaarani spent two months planning the attack and had tried making homemade bombs with materials bought from Bunnings and Chemist Warehouse.
Ibrahim later admitted they were too stupid to make the bombs work.
Hamza Abbas was recruited to the group by his brother three weeks before their arrest.
Justice Beale said while his participation was less, it could not be described as fleeting, and was indeed significant.
“There is strength in numbers,” he said.
Justice Beale said standard sentencing principles were varied for terrorism cases including that the men’s youth, and rehabilitation, were of less significance.
Ahead of their sentencing, Chaarani and Mohamed publicly renounced IS while Abbas, whose own lawyer dubbed an “idiot” and a “fishbrain”, begged for mercy.
Chaarani and Mohamed also waived their right to any appeal against their convictions, making full admissions about their involvement.
Justice Beale found both Chaarani and Mohamed were genuinely on the path to deradicalisation, which warranted a sentence reduction.
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The trio’s remorse, reasonable prospects of rehabilitation, hard work while in prison, and commitment to complete courses and study were also significant.
But Justice Beale said despite the mitigating factors applicable to each of the men, their offending was still a serious example of the offence.
It “constituted an assault on fundamental values of our society, including respect for each persons dignity regardless of creed,” he said.
Originally published as Trio jailed over foiled Federation Square terror plot