Usman Khawaja’s brother’s fake terror notebook revealed
Exactly what the troubled brother of Australian cricket star Usman Khawaja wrote in UNSW notebook to frame a colleague with false terrorism claims has been revealed for the first time.
Police & Courts
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“Get bomb and weapon training,” “Continue to strengthen muscles for jihad” and “can’t wait to go to Sri Lanka for Jihad prep” were some of the bogus terror diary entries used by the brother of Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja to frame a colleague.
Last November Arsalan Khawaja pleaded guilty to lying to police about his former university co-worker and love rival, who he claimed was planning Islamic State-inspired lone wolf attacks in August 2018.
But the 40-year-old sent anonymous tips to immigration officials about another male victim’s fake extremist ideology as early as 2016 in an attempt to get him deported amid another love triangle, according to a set of facts agreed to by the prosecution and defence.
Khawaja concocted similar fabrications about his UNSW co-worker Mohamed Kamer Nizamdeen and another man known by the pseudonym M1.
The bitter western Sydney man considered them both to be love rivals and accused them of plotting religious violence after coming to Australia to study.
Khawaja told authorities the two internationals wanted to marry local girls to gain permanent residency before slaying Australian soldiers, politicians and other “infidels”, agreed facts state.
The UNSW IT worker stole Mr Nizamdeen’s notebook while he was visiting family in Sri Lanka in August 2018, and secretly wrote down a terrorist blueprint targeting then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Sydney Opera House.
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The fake terror to do list included “kill army and police and politicians,” “Call brother in Lakemba in Jihad discussion and ISIS recruiting” and a reminder that “death for Allah = Paradise.”
Under the heading “Goals” Khawaja listed attacks on a UNSW building and Randwick police station alongside: “Go to Europe and America in 2019 to do attacks and meet brothers in Jihad.”
Khawaja filled at least 12 pages with detailed notes and under the heading “things to do in Sri Lanka/Aus (2018)” listed learning “fighting skills,” how to use “poison and acid on disbelievers” and “put picture of clubbing on social media to avoid detection.”
“Australian Army (is) a joke, they rape/kill our brothers and sisters in Syria, Afghanistan and Iran. I will take revenge when I get PR (permanent residency),” was another entry Khawaja wrote in the popular commerce graduate’s notebook.
Agreed facts show the then 38-year-old’s motive was jealousy of a friendship between Mr Nizamdeen and Shakeela Shahid, a young woman who worked in their office.
The pair became friends while studying and Ms Shahid told Khawaja that two years earlier Mr Nizamdeen had expressed a romantic interest in her, which she did not reciprocate, court documents state.
In April or May 2018 Khawaja and Ms Shahid went on a few dinner dates “to see if they could be more than friends” but the 21-year-old soon stopped replying to his messages.
They subsequently agreed to keep things platonic “because the friendship was too good to jeopardise because of a small dalliance,” agreed facts state.
But by mid 2018 Khawaja began texting Ms Shahid again, begging her to be “honest” about whether she was still contacting the 25-year-old Junior Business Analyst.
“I am so mind f***ed how (Mr Nizamdeen) came into the picture suddenly,” Khawaja wrote.
“The fact that this is hurting me so much shows how strongly I feel for you.”
During this time Khawaja told Ms Shahid his brother and father had been hospitalised, adding: “I really need a friend right now, but you can’t even reply to my messages.”
In July 2018 Khawaja told his ex-girlfriend, known as F1, that he’d been dating a woman but had seen her texts appear on the phone of a co-worker who “worked underneath him.”
“I could get him fired, I could ruin his career but I’m not going to do that,” Khawaja texted F1.
On August 30 Khawaja did something worse, alerting campus security guards to the faked entries in the notebook which also contained a goal to “win (Ms Shahid) over to get marriage and PR (permanent residency)” and convert her to the jihad cause.
When Mr Nizamdeen - the nephew of Sri Lanka’s sports minister - was arrested that day, colleagues observed Khawaja to be “a nervous wreck”, looking “particularly distressed” and jittery.
But Khawaja falsely claimed to police his devout Muslim colleague had been acting detached lately and he “also appeared worried that there was reference to the test cricket in the notebook because Mr Nizamdeen knew that his brother played test cricket.”
Mr Nizamdeen was imprisoned for a month in Goulburn’s notorious Supermax jail before he was released on bail, and his charges were dropped in October 2018 after experts found two sets of handwriting in the notebook.
He returned to Sri Lanka and vowed to sue the Australian Federal Police who he accused of conducting an investigation that was “immature, unprofessional, irresponsible, embarrassing and biased”.
Khawaja was arrested on December 4, and the former IBM employee remains in custody after his $1.1 million bail bid was denied.
He’ll face a sentence hearing on Friday for perverting the course of justice and dishonestly influencing a public official - which carry a combined maximum jail term of 15 years.
The sentencing judge will also take into account the additional charges of influencing a witness in judicial proceedings and forgery.
Khawaja’s bail was revoked on December 28, 2018, after he gave F1’s brother a letter on Boxing Day asking the woman to give false evidence, stating: “You are the star witness and only you have the power to save or bury me.”
After following the brother from his Westmead home to Chatswood, Khawaja gave him the handwritten note addressed to F1 along with an instruction: “Tell her to burn it when she’s read it.”
Khawaja told him “the notebook love triangle isn’t a big deal, I can solve that” but stressed “your sister is the main witness for my character,” according to agreed facts.
“You have the ability to make or destroy me,” Khawaja wrote in the letter.
“If you don’t help me then I risk getting 10-15 years in jail.”
Khawaja said he was being unfairly targeted by police, who aimed to ruin his credibility by using the former couple’s past to paint him as an “angry, jealous physo (sic) X.”
“Please help the court focus on the positive of our relationship… any attacks you made on (sic) texts please just tell them the truth that they were made in anger during a tough time for us.”
THE OTHER LOVE TRIANGLE AND FAKE TERROR PLOT
In November 2013 Khawaja’s mother introduced him to F1 who lived on their street in Westmead, and the then 33-year-old began dating the 18-year-old.
The pair moved in together in the second half of 2014, and despite breaking up around August 2015, remained living together as friends.
Khawaja was upset when he discovered that month that his ex-girlfriend had found a new flame — a man known only as M1.
In October 2016, Khawaja sent an anonymous tip to immigration officials claiming M1 was preaching extremist ideology at a Sydney mosque and was breaching his student visa.
By December Khawaja’s ex-lover and M1 had ended their relationship, and the offender reached out to her saying “the whole saga with him destroyed me.”
Khawaja asked F1 to never speak to M1 again, saying “I just want him gone,” but despite the woman refusing and asking him to stop contacting her, by January 2017 Khawaja was still telling her “I love you.”
“You are not feeling my lack of presence but I feel yours everyday,” Khawaja wrote in one message.
“I help so much but you hate me and not him … if you knew how to be alone you wouldn’t let (M1) in.”
Khawaja has since claimed he’d experienced auditory and visual hallucinations about both M1 and F1.
On January 9, 2017, Khawaja called the federal immigration department’s Border Watch hotline and falsely told them M1 had revealed he was part of an Islamic extremist group.
Khawaja told authorities that M1 said he’d travelled to Pakistan in June 2016 for weapons training and wanted to travel to Iraq and Syria to fight “nonbelievers.”
“He says that we need to have one Muslim nation, under the Sharia Law,” Khawaja said during the recorded call.
In reality the pair had never met, but Khawaja claimed M1 also hoped to secure Australian permanent residency to teach other local Muslims his radical ideology.
“He wants to spread the message here,” Khawaja said.
“(He is) eagerly trying to find a girl here so he gets citizenship through marriage … you guys might want to have a look at that.”
Khawaja claimed it was “very scary” to hear M1 say he wanted to get revenge on Australian soldiers for “killing your brothers and sisters” in the Middle East.
While executing a search warrant on Khawaja’s family home in October 2018 over the UNSW notebook offences, police found a letter from M1 to F1 in his wardrobe next to his passport.
