Bungling plot via the Cape
SIX bungling terror wannabes have admitted an audacious plan to sail a small boat from Cape York to the Philippines to help overthrow that government.
But the plot – which involved towing a 7m craft from Bendigo to launch it in Far North Queensland and then set sail to South East Asia – was so ridiculous it was later acknowledged the men could never have completed the sea voyage. In fact, Victorian Supreme Court Justice Michael Croucher said ringleader Robert “Musa” Cerantonio’s “poorly planned venture was foredoomed to failure” as the novice boatmen’s “ill-suited vessel” would never have made it “past the breakers off far north of Queensland”. Yesterday four of the tinnie terrorists were jailed for their roles in the 2016 plot.
IT was a hare-brained scheme doomed to fail from the start.
A gang of wannabe jihadists from Melbourne believed they could tow a boat to the Far North and then negotiate treacherous waters to take up arms for Islamic State.
The men behind the flawed plot – dubbed the “tinnie terrorists” and led by IS preacher Robert “Musa” Cerantonio – yesterday pleaded guilty to their ill-fated plan.
Yesterday Murat Kaya, 28, was jailed for three years and eight months while his younger brother Kadir, 24, Paul Dacre, 33, and Antonio Granata, 28, were each sentenced to four years with a three-year non-parole period.
Because the men have been on remand for more than 1000 days since their arrest, they will each be eligible for release this year, with freedom a possibility for Murat Kaya as early as next week.
Cerantonio and Shayden Thorne, who pleaded guilty to a foreign incursion offence, have not yet been sentenced.
A group of five Melbourne men met in Bendigo where they bought a 7m fibreglass boat they intended to travel in from Queensland to Asia.
They attached their getaway vessel to the back of a Mitsubishi 4WD and stuffed it with petrol, water and maps.
Cerantonio issued a war cry before the journey: “You will find people who are ready for jihad, jihad runs in their veins.”
Their car broke down at least three times during its 3000km road trip towards the top of Cape York, a mission which took 87 hours.
Cerantonio, Dacre, Thorne, Kadir Kaya and Granata were arrested near Cairns on May 10, 2016. Murat Kaya, was caught a short time later in Melbourne.
He had planned to travel separately to the Philippines with the other men’s wives.
The bungling bunch thought taking inland roads in their spluttering car would help them avoid detection, but police were monitoring them.
They pulled into the remote Palmer River Roadhouse to stock up on fuel. Roadhouse employee Andrew Steward said the “jihadi fishermen” stuck out like sore thumbs.
“They just looked out of place,” he said.
Police stopped by a short time later and Mr Steward told them: “You just missed them.”
Officers from Victoria and Queensland’s counter-terrorism teams eventually arrested the men at a river crossing in Laura, long before their getaway boat hit the water. They were an 18-hour drive from their planned launch point at Weipa.
The men had planned to island hop from Australia to West Papua and then continue on to the Philippines where they wanted to join IS sympathiser Abu Sayyaf.