Australia police say Muslim cleric led attack plot

CANBERRA (Reuters) – An Australian Muslim cleric who said
Osama bin Laden was a “great man” has been named by police as
the spiritual leader of a group of 16 men charged on Tuesday
with planning a terrorist attack in Australia.

Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, has long been
monitored by Australian authorities and grabbed headlines in
August after he praised bin Laden, blamed for the September 11,
2001, attacks on the United States.

He is a self-styled leader of a fundamentalist Islamic
group of young followers in the suburbs of Australia’s
second-biggest city, Melbourne. Some of these followers, local
radio reported, attended militant training camps in Asia.

“Osama Bin Laden, he is a great man,” Benbrika, 45, told
Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) radio in August.

Following police raids in Sydney and Melbourne on Tuesday,
Benbrika was charged with directing the activities of a
terrorist organization and remanded in custody until January.

Benbrika’s passport was confiscated in March on advice from
the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, which then
raided his Melbourne home in June, ABC radio has reported.

But Benbrika, a dual Australian/Algerian citizen who has at
least six children and has lived in Melbourne since 1989,
denied he was a security threat.

“I am not involved in anything here. I am teaching my
brothers here the Koran and the Sunna, and I am trying my best
to keep myself, my family, my kids and the Muslims close to
this religion,” he told the ABC, referring to the holy book and
the code of conduct for Muslims.

Benbrika said he opposed anyone trying to harm his
religion. He also said it was a “big problem” for Muslims
reconciling their religion with life in Australia.

“There are two laws. There is Australian law. There is
Islamic law,” he said, adding the only law that needed to be
spread was Islam.

“Jihad is part of my religion, and what you have to
understand that anyone who fights for the sake of Allah …
(with) the first drop of blood that comes from him out, all his
sin will be forgiven,” he said.

Other Australian Muslim leaders have said Benbrika
represented a minority view, and Prime Minister John Howard did
not invite Benbrika to a summit of key Muslim leaders in
August.