Benbrika: From terror plotter to ‘changed man’

The Melbourne homegrown terror group led by Abdul Nacer Benbrika plotted a wave of unfathomable bombings designed to murder thousands. But he says he’s “not the man he once was”.

The Melbourne homegrown terror group Abdul Nacer Benbrika led had one main goal – to convince the Australian Government to pull out of the Iraq War, turning its back on its staunchest allies.

The method would have been catastrophic: a wave of unfathomable terror bombings designed to murder and injure thousands of innocent Australians frequenting major landmarks in the nation’s biggest cities.

Tens of thousands of spectators would gather at the 2005 AFL Grand Final at the MCG, a fact Benbrika and his cell were counting on.

Also on the hit list were Crown Casino and a nuclear reactor near Sydney.

Video played in court shows Benbrika and an undercover police officer testing a bomb on a bush track at Mount Disappointment.

Talk among the extremists at one point centred on the idea of assassinating former Prime Minister John Howard as a strike against having Australian troops in Iraq.

The teacher’s comments praising Osama bin Laden, which aired in a media report, drew the attention of ASIO, who withdrew his passport before launching heavy surveillance on the cleric.

Sixteen months later, authorities raided Benbrika’s home, uncovering the sheer scale of the “terrorist spectacular on the scale of the al-Qaeda attacks” the men had been planning.

Abdul Nacer Benbrika at Sydney airport after flying in under a false name.

Authorities arrested the then 45-year-old Benbrika and 17 other men before the group could execute their disastrous plots.

Since his conviction in 2008, the Herald Sun revealed Benbrika continued to spread jihadist ideology among younger extremists in Melbourne.

Prison and federal authorities believed family members were relaying conversations to Benbrika’s hardcore followers on the outside.

As a result, the Algerian-born terrorist spent a significant amount of his jail stint inside Barwon Prison in solitary confinement out of fear he would have spread his views throughout the complex.

Successive governments have long been plagued by Benbrika’s sentence, his bids for freedom, and what would follow once he finished the 15-year jail term he was handed for leading the terror cell.

Neither the Coalition nor Labor governments had changed legislation to keep Benbrika behind bars under a longer detention order.

Benbrika completed his sentence on November 5 2020, but was moved into detention as then

Benbrika is led from the Supreme Court after being sentenced over the bomb plot.

Benbrika spent 18 years behind bars.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton applied to keep him behind bars for an additional three years.

Benbrika unsuccessfully challenged the federal Continuing Detention Order (CDO), alleging it was unconstitutional.

There had also been talk about Benbrika being deported back to Algeria at the end of his prison sentence.

But on November 1, the High Court restored his citizenship after ruling that part of the citizenship act that allowed it to be stripped was invalid.

Ahead of the expiration of Benbrika’s ESO, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus confirmed there were no ongoing plans to keep him locked up.

Now, nearly two decades after his arrest, Benbrika is a free man, albeit older, frailer and with more grey hair than when he first walked into Barwon Prison following his conviction over the planned attacks.

Standing in the driveway of his northern suburbs home, having swapped prison clothes for a traditional thobe, the now 62-year-old wants Australians to know he is a changed man who no longer subscribes to extremist views.

A litany of strict conditions means the convicted terrorist is bound by an ankle bracelet and a limited list of approved contacts.

The primary targets of Benbrika’s cell, Crown Casino and the MGC, have banned the Muslim cleric from attending their venues for life.

But questions remain over next steps for when his supervision order expires on December 19.