Brothers of ISIS guilty of bomb plot
Two Sydney brothers have been convicted of plotting to bring down a commercial plane over NSW.
Two Sydney brothers have been convicted of plotting to bring down a commercial plane over country NSW, and a third brother has been cleared in Lebanon of involvement in the same plan, bringing to an end one of the most horrifying terrorist conspiracies undertaken on Australian soil.
Mahmoud Khayat was found guilty in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday of a single charge of doing an act in preparation for a terrorist act, just four months after his older brother Khaled was convicted in the same court on the same charge.
The guilty verdict against Mahmoud came just hours after a Lebanese court acquitted the duo’s younger brother, Amer Khayat, of any role in the botched plan, bolstering the police theory that Mahmoud and Khaled used Amer as an unwitting dupe to carry a bomb aboard the plane on July 15, 2017.
At the time of the arrests in 2017, the Australian Federal Police said they believed Amer had no knowledge of the bomb and had been used by his brothers. However, he was arrested by Lebanese authorities and spent two years and two months in prison before being acquitted and set free on Thursday, according to Lebanese news agency NNA.
The military court also sentenced three other Khayat brothers — Khaled, Mahmoud and Tarek — in absentia to hard labour for life, NNA said.
Tarek Khayat is currently in an Iraqi prison having been sentenced to death over his involvement with Islamic State.
The convictions of the Khayat brothers caps off one of the most sophisticated terrorism plots ever undertaken in this country.
Police conducted a series of raids across Sydney after intelligence was received on July 26, 2017, that Islamic State operatives in the city had attempted to smuggle a bomb aboard a plane.
The intelligence led to a brief but intensive investigation which culminated in the arrest and charging of Khaled and Mahmoud Khayat.
Police would allege that Khaled and Mahmoud built a bomb using military-grade explosives. The two brothers received instructions on how to build the device from an unnamed Islamic State controller based in the Syrian-Iraq theatre, which at that time was under the control of Islamic State.
The relationship between the controller and the two Khayat brothers was brokered by the fourth Khayat brother, Tarek, who lived in Lebanon but who had travelled to Syria to fight under the banner of Islamic State.
Tarek took with him two sons who were killed in coalition airstrikes. This prompted him to reach out to his Australian-based brothers to begin plotting a retaliatory attack, according to police.
The ISIS controller guided the two Sydney brothers through the bomb-making process and by July 2017 they had two devices ready to go, one concealed in a meat grinder, the other in a Barbie doll.
On July 15 Amer was preparing to board an Etihad flight to Lebanon with the meat grinder containing the bomb in his bag.
However, at the last minute one of the brothers removed the device, avoiding what would have been a catastrophic attack had the bomb cleared the airport security screeners.
A fallback plot was under way when police arrested Mahmoud and Khaled 11 days after their initial plot failed.
Amer’s aunt, who identified herself as Amerhi and who lives at one of the houses raided by police in 2017, on Thursday expressed gratitude at her nephew’s release.
“He was working at the restaurant, he was married, he’s got two daughters,’’ she said of Amer’s life in Sydney.
Amerhi said Amer travelled to Lebanon to marry a second time following his divorce from his Australian-based wife.
She said the family knew of the death of Tarek’s sons in Syria. It is understood Tarek had texted pictures of at least one of his boys dressed in battle fatigues to his brothers in Sydney.
“That’s what I heard,’’ Amerhi said, referring to the death of Tarek’s sons. “I heard that from the family.’’
