Cricket star’s Usman Khawaja brother Arsalan in alleged terror fix

A love triangle drove cricketer Usman Khawaja’s brother to plant hoax terrorist material in a colleague’s notebook, police allege.

Arsalan Khawaja and brother Usman. Picture: Facebook

A love triangle with a woman drove ­the older brother of Australian Test cricketer Usman Khawaja to plant hoax terrorist material in a university colleague’s notebook, police allege.

Arsalan Tariq Khawaja, 39, was yesterday charged over the alleged plot that led to his love rival and co-worker Mohamed Kamer Nilar Nizamdeen, 26, being falsely accused of terrorism charges and locked up in a jail cell for four weeks.

NSW Police Force assistant commissioner Mick Willing, from counter-terror command, said the alleged “set up” was, in part, over a woman.

“What we will be alleging is that (Mr Nizamdeen) was set up in a planned and calculated matter motivated in part by personal grievance,” he said.

Mr Nizamdeen, a then 25-year-old PhD student and IT worker at the University of NSW, was ­arrested over the notebook in ­August and accused of plotting an Islamic State-inspired lone-wolf attack.

Usman Khawaja, right, with brother Arsalan.

The notes allegedly mentioned then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, then foreign minister Julie Bishop and the Opera House.

The charges against Mr Nizamdeen were dropped in October after it was revealed the “hit list” did not match his handwriting.

He had spent four weeks in jail, including one night at Goulburn’s SuperMax prison, an experience he later said left him shattered and ruined his future.

Usman Khawaja, who will make his return from a knee injury in the first Test against India starting in Adelaide tomorrow, did not wish to comment on his brother’s charges. “I won’t be saying much, guys,” he said. “This is a matter for the police to deal with.”

Terrorism expert Greg Barton yesterday compared the charges against Mr Nizamdeen to the wrongful arrest of Mohamed ­Haneef. The Indian doctor was arrested at Brisbane airport in 2007 in connection with a failed London bomb plot.

Kamer Nizamdeen. Picture: Damian Shaw

He was held for 12 days before being falsely charged with providing support to a terrorist organisation.

The charge was unsustainable and was dropped, but in the ­interim Dr Haneef’s immigration visa was cancelled on character grounds, a decision later ruled ­unlawful.

“It’s inept, terribly cruel and horrible,” Dr Barton, professor of global Islamic politics at Deakin University in Melbourne, said of how police had treated Mr ­Nizamdeen.

Mr Willing did not explicitly apologise to Mr Nizamdeen for his ordeal but said police regretted the circumstances. “We have ­offered and have paid his court costs,” he said. “We regret the circumstances which led to him being charged and the time he subsequently spent in custody.”

Police are understood to have executed a search warrant on ­Arsalan Khawaja’s premises and allegedly discovered handwriting samples identical to the “extremist’’ material in the notebook.

According to a source familiar with the case, detectives found practice notes where Mr Khawaja allegedly mimicked Mr Nizamdeen’s handwriting. Mr Khawaja was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice under the Commonwealth Crimes Act, and forgery/make a false document under the NSW Crimes Act

The Australian has been told police were alerted to a notebook containing what appeared to be extremist material after Mr Khawaja contacted university campus security after having “discovered’’ it among Mr Nizamdeen’s possessions. Campus security then contacted police who handed it to the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team.

The handwriting appeared consistent throughout the notebook and a preliminary analysis by an expert was inconclusive.

Detectives who interviewed Mr Nizamdeen are understood to have become suspicious after the IT worker refused to comment on the material, which was interspersed with other writings throughout the journal. It was not until Mr Nizamdeen was in prison that he began to protest his innocence, telling authorities he had been framed and nominating Mr Khawaja as the potential culprit.

A second handwriting analysis suggested there could have been two authors.

The source of the bad blood between the two men is believed to be a woman who was an employee at the IT centre.

Mr Khawaja appeared in Parramatta Local Court yesterday, where he was granted bail, un­opposed by the prosecution, with strict conditions.

He did not comment as he walked from Parramatta police station.

He has surrendered his passport and been ordered not to approach either UNSW or points of departure. His father, Tariq, paid a $50,000 surety.

He must not associate with a “significant number” of people who may be called as witnesses, and he will reappear in court on February 12.

“I just ask for you to please respect my privacy and my family’s privacy at this time.”

At a press conference in Sri Lanka in October Mr Nizamdeen said the experience had destroyed his life and he planned to launch legal action.

“The whole saga has ruined my future and I have returned to Sri Lanka to carry on my life,” he said.

“The ordeal has left me shattered and all I can think of is to raise my voice and stand in support of other victims of injustice who stand wrongfully accused by any system.”