Rookie ASIO agent foiled Christmas Day terrorists

New details of how close a terror cell came to pulling off Australia’s worst terrorist attack can be revealed for the first time.

Christmas Day terror plotters, from left, ringleader Ibrahim Abbas, Abdullah Chaarani, Hamza Abbas and Ahmed Mohamed during the trial. Pictures: Jake Nowakowski

A rookie female ASIO officer helped thwart what would have been Australia’s worst terrorist attack when she spotted young men visiting a chemist shop late at night to gather bomb-making chemicals.

New details of how close a terror cell came to pulling off horrific attacks on Christmas Day in Melbourne in 2016 can be revealed today for the first time after a court yesterday lifted a suppression order.

Australia’s spy chief, Duncan Lewis, has told how an 11th-hour tip from the new ASIO recruit helped authorities foil martyrdom missions using vehicles, knives and suicide vests at crowded Melbourne landmarks including Federation Square, Flinders Street Station and St Paul’s Cathedral at Christmas time 2016.

“The Christmas crowds were gathering and as a result of the ­exertions of a young ASIO officer — a young woman who had been with us for about five minutes — one of our analysts, had noticed a group of young men forming in an unusual way and going to a chemist shop late at night,” Mr Lewis, the ASIO ­director-general, said.

“They were in fact picking up the precursors for explosives. That was all the lead we needed.”

Four Sunni Muslim men, all home-grown jihadis, were ­arrested at gunpoint on December 22, 2016, and charged with conspiring to carry out acts in preparation for a terrorist attack, as authorities rushed to prevent a likely attack on Christmas Day.

The men had links to the notorious Hume Islamic Youth Centre and met there on December 20, before heading into the city on a reconnaissance mission that was captured on CCTV.

The Victorian Court of Appeal yesterday ruled that the media could report that three of the men — Ahmed Mohamed, 25, Abdullah Chaarani, 27, and Hamza Abbas, 23 — had been convicted on November 2 of terrorism offences after a 10-week trial and seven days of jury deliberations. The three men laughed and smiled at each other as the verdicts were read. Ringleader Ibrahim Abbas, Hamza’s older brother and Chaarani’s cousin, pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in February and gave evidence in the trial as a prosecution witness.

The court heard Mohamed and Chaarani planned to travel in 2015 to Malaysia — a stop-off used in the past by some fighters heading to Syria — but were halted at the airport. Mohamed tried to travel in May 2015 and Ibrahim Abbas drove Chaarani to the airport in July. The Abbases’ cousin Nabil Abbas left Melbourne for Malaysia in June 2015 and was later killed fighting for Islamic State.

News of the verdicts comes amid debate about the role of imams and the Muslim community in combating radicalism, after last Friday’s Bourke Street terror attack in Melbourne by ­Somalia-born Hassan Kalif Shire Ali, who killed restaurateur Sisto Mala­spina and stabbed two others. Shire Ali had also attended the Hume Islamic Youth Centre.

Scott Morrison has urged Muslim leaders to stop “the wolves” from coming in” and alert authorities to suspected radicals.

In a speech in September to international military officials at the Land Forces conference in Ade­laide that can be reported only now for legal reasons, Mr Lewis said the planned attack “could have resulted in significant loss of life” and described it as a near-miss. “The plan was to drive a ­vehicle into the square in the ­middle of the Christmas crowd, kill as many people as they could with the vehicle … leap out (and) attack everybody with the sharp bladed weapons,” he said. Mr Lewis said a common thread among Australia’s ­extrem­ists was their youth and self-­radicalisation. “They’re radical­is­ing in their homes,” he said. “They’re all fuddy-duddies in mosques and prayer rooms.”

The court heard the men attended the HIYC, which was mentioned in a November 21, 2016, WhatsApp chat between Chaa­rani and Mohamed.

During the trial, the court heard the men were in the late ­stages of preparations when they were arrested. They had been recorded talking about shahada — martyrdom — and were anxious to have a suicide vest ready by Christmas Day. The jury was shown CCTV footage of them visit­ing the city and casing possible landmarks for the attack, including Federation Square, the cathedral and Flinders Street station.

Ibrahim Abbas told police after his arrest that they wanted a public place for maximum effect. “The bigger, the more terror is achieved, and that’s the point,” he said.

The men had sourced seven boxes of Ramset power load cartridges, which contained explosive charges used to drive nails into concrete. A tub was found at Chaarani’s home containing 800 match heads and 400 sparklers, potentially used for an IED. Pipes and tap ends were also found.

Ibrahim Abbas was filmed at Federation Square making a slicing motion as he told the group it was “not that hard to kill someone”. He told the jury Chaarani asked him how it could be easy to kill someone: “And then I said: ‘You know what, if you slice someone in the neck, they die — it’s a very easy way to kill someone.’ ”

Upon his arrest, Hamza Abbas told police the purpose of the trip was to get ice cream: “I had ­vanilla.”

He later admitted that was a lie.

The jury heard evidence from a worker at the Broadmeadows Chemist Warehouse about two men buying hydrogen peroxide on December 2 and watched CCTV footage of Ahmed Mohamed and Hamza Abbas looking at the bottle.

In his police interview Abbas said he thought it was going to be used to treat warts.

“[Mohamed] described it as … you get like little pimples on your hands or parts of your bodies and doctors use it to … a wart, yeah, that’s what he explained it as,” Abbas said.

The jury didn’t believe his story, preferring the prosecutions case that this was to be used as an ingredient for explosives.

The court heard the men attended the Hume Islamic Youth Centre which was mentioned in a November 21 WhatsApp chat between Mohamed and Chaarani, where Chaarani warned Mohamed to not play loud nasheeds (Islamic songs) or videos at his place or he might get drama from his landlord.

“Sooner rather than later his gonna pick up on u that you don’t pray at mysnitchcentre,” Chaarani messaged.

“I’m gonna say IYC (Islamic Youth Centre) is closer,” Mohamed replied.

Mr Lewis said a common thread among Australia’s extremists was their youth and their self-radicalisation.

“They’re radicalising in their homes,” he said. “They’re all fuddy-duddies in mosques and prayer rooms.”

Ibrahim Abbas was filmed at Federation Square making a slicing motion as he told the group it was “not that hard to kill someone”.

He told the jury Chaarani asked him how it could be easy to kill someone.

“And then I said: ‘You know what, if you slice someone in the neck they die, it’s a very easy way to kill someone’.

Upon his arrest Hamza Abbas told police the purpose of the trip was to get ice cream: “I had vanilla”.

He later admitted that was a lie.

Prosecutors told the court the men had made late night trips to regional Victoria to test explosive devices, however police did not detect traces of explosives.

The day after visiting Federation Square police secretly recorded a conversation between Mohamed and Ibrahim Abbas where Mohamed repeatedly said he was “shitting bricks”.

Mohamed however went on to say he was “not backing down … I’m just worrying bro”.

The two also discussed strapping Mohamed’s wife with an explosive device.

“Strap her and just drop her,” Mohamed said.

“Drop her off and go.”

Abbas rejected the idea.

“What if it doesn’t blow up on her, she gets caught?” he said.

“See it’s different if we get caught, but if she gets caught. If she gets caught her-what’s-it called, her honour is gunna get touched.”

Ibrahim Abbas was to be the star witness for the prosecution.

He had made explosive admissions to police but walked back from them when called to the witness box.

“We’re gunna ram a policeman and get his gun,” Abbas told police after his arrest.

“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 one person would use the gun and I was gunna just, whoever I see I was gunna chop and chopping to kill.

“And then I was gunna tell my co’s (friends) to blow themselves up.”

He told police that he planned to put an explosive vest on his brother Hamza, who was later described in court as being a “fishbrain”.

Giving evidence in court however Ibrahim Abbas said he “didn’t really have a plan” and had lied to police to make the story more believable.

“I’m making things up as I go just to add to the story,” he said.

He told the court that he had wanted to carry out a terror attack to stop the Australian government financing the war against Islamic State.

“I wanted to make sure that the casualties would be high, the bigger the better,” he said.

The court heard the men were inspired by Islamic State, using their phones to watch propaganda videos. The web pages reads: Watch: ISIS releases- English version of video where ‘US spies’ are hung from meat hooks”, “Watch: ISIS executes hundreds of boys and men into mass graves”,“Watch: New ISIS video shows battlefield executions in Syria” and “Watch: New ISIS video shows mass execution and bombing of ‘Apostate’ civilians.”

Mohamed and Chaarani had viewed the 2010 edition of al-Qai’da magazine Inspire, which contained an article headlined “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom”.

Mohamed’s phone contained pictures of him holding the Islamic State flag and holding up his index finger in the group’s symbol of their cause.

While Ibrahim Abbas compared himself to Jesus in his police interview, with his co-accused as his disciples, Hamza Abbas described himself as a “fishbrain”.

The brothers’ stepsister Nabila Abbas gave evidence that Hamza couldn’t even be trusted to buy a bottle of milk without calling home twice to ask what he was meant to buy.

“We’ve had to repeat things to him many, many times before he knew what we wanted from him,” she said.

Hamza Abbas’ barrister Felicity Gerry QC described her client as “something of a modern recluse” who liked to play video games.

“It doesn’t make anybody agree to be a soldier or a martyr … he is simply not a jihadi. He was just a good Muslim,” she said.

Prosecutor Nick Papas QC however told the jury Hamza Abbas was part of the conspiracy and “not just a dupe”.

By their verdict the jury believed him.

Chaarani’s level of fanaticism could be measured by his comments when arrested at gunpoint in Springvale Melbourne’s south east on December 22.

“You could have made me a martyr. Go on, make me a martyr,” he chanted.

The men will be sentenced next year.