Australian planned holy war attacks, court told

SYDNEY (Reuters) – An Australian architect facing terrorism
charges was planning to bomb either the nation’s electricity
grid or defense installations in Sydney, prosecutors told a
court on Monday.

Pakistan-born Faheem Khalid Lodhi has pleaded not guilty to
four charges which include planning to detonate a home-made
bomb at a number of targets in Sydney, Australia’s largest
city, as part of a holy war.

Prosecutors said that Lodhi had worked at three defense
installations in Sydney and that intelligence agents and police
had found what amounted to “a terrorism manual” when they
searched his home in October 2003.

Prosecution lawyer Richard Maidment said in his opening
statements to the New South Wales Supreme Court that 38 aerial
photographs of defense sites and two maps of the country’s
electricity grid were also found.

Maidment said a 15-page note in Lodhi’s handwriting was
also discovered.

“It reveals what can only be fairly described as a
terrorism manual for the manufacture of home-made poisons,
explosives, detonators and incendiary devices,” he told the
court.

Maidment told the jury of six men and six women that the
notes also included a translation from the Koran which said the
purpose of violent jihad, or holy war, was “to strike terror
into the hearts of the enemy.”

Lodhi, 36, sat quietly dressed in a suit and tie as
prosecutors opened their case against him. His lawyers will
make their opening remarks on Wednesday and the case is
expected to last for up to eight weeks.

Lodhi, who emigrated to Australia in 1996, was charged
under tough new anti-terrorism laws introduced soon after the
September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Australia is a staunch U.S. ally with troops serving in
Iraq and Afghanistan but has never suffered a major peacetime
attack on home soil.

In June 2004, British-born Muslim convert Jack Roche became
the first Australian to be convicted under the new laws and was
sentenced to 9 years in jail for conspiring to bomb the Israeli
embassy in Canberra.