Plotters ‘had bomb, gas’
A MAN charged over a NSWbased terror conspiracy to bring down a plane tried to have his unsuspecting brother take a bomb on a July 15 flight out of Sydney, authorities allege.
Khaled Mahmoud Khayat, 49, allegedly accompanied the unnamed brother to Sydney’s international airport ahead of his Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi.
His brother was unaware a military-grade explosive was stashed in his luggage.
Australian Federal Police deputy commissioner Michael Phelan said the luggage didn’t make it on to the plane and Khayat took it from the airport.
“There is a little bit of conjecture as to why it didn’t go ahead,” he said yesterday. “It did not get through security.”
Mr Khayat’s brother is still overseas and had “no idea” he was to carry an improvised explosive device (IED).
Authorities allege a second attack was planned after the first plot failed. It involved an attempt to build an improvised chemical dispersion device to release toxic gas.
“It was designed to release the highly toxic hydrogen sulfide,” Mr Phelan said, but he stressed the alleged conspirators “were a mile-and-a-half from having a functioning chemical dispersion device”.
There was no evidence the device was designed to be used on a plane.
Mr Khayat, of Lakemba, and Mahmoud Khayat, 32, of Punchbowl, had their matter mentioned at Parramatta Local Court yesterday, after each was charged with two counts of acting in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act on Thursday night. Their lawyer, Michael Coroneos, said his clients were “entitled to the presumption of innocence”.
The men, who were refused bail ahead of another court mention on November 14, face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
A third man remains behind bars held under special antiterror laws. He can be detained until the weekend.
Mr Phelan said the aborted July 15 plot involved a highend explosive concealed in a meat grinder.
“This is one of the most sophisticated plots that has ever been attempted on Australian soil,” the deputy commissioner said.
“If it hadn’t been for the great work of our intelligence agencies and law enforcement over a very quick period of time then we could very well have had a catastrophic event in this country.”
Authorities have since created a mock IED to test the airport’s security and say they had a 100 per cent success rate in terms of the device being picked up.
“This is one of the most sophisticated plots that has ever been attempted on Australian soil.” AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MICHAEL PHELAN