4 charged in ‘terror’ killing
Camp to close
SYDNEY, April 27, (AFP): Australian authorities on Wednesday charged four men over a 2015 attack in which a teenage boy shot dead a police employee, alleging all were members of a terror organisation.
Farhad Jabar, 15, shot senior accountant Curtis Cheng, 58, outside Sydney police headquarters where he worked last October. The teenager was killed in gunfire shortly afterwards.
New South Wales Deputy Commissioner of police Catherine Burn said the four had been charged with conspiring to carry out an act in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act.
“We do allege that these four people acted together in concert and the fifth person, the 15-yearold, was a part of that,” she told a press conference.
She said the charges reflect “the criminality of all of them involved to come together to actually prepare and plan to do an absolutely heinous criminal act which resulted in the murder of a police employee”.
The men, aged 18, 20, 22 and 23, have all been charged with membership of a terrorist organisation, Burn added, without revealing the name of the group or groups.
The 20-year-old is also accused of assisting the travel of the teenage gunman’s sister to Syria on the day before the murder.
Jabar
Custody
All four men are in custody and expected to appear in court on Thursday.
Australia has long been concerned about home-grown extremism and raised the terror threat alert level to high in September 2014.
Police have repeatedly warned about the young age of those apparently drawn to extremist ideology and incited to commit acts of terror.
On Sunday police charged a 16-year-old Sydney boy with preparing a terror attack linked to Anzac Day commemorations honouring servicemen and women. He has pleaded not guilty.
Australia’s hardline immigration policy was thrown into turmoil Wednesday after Papua New Guinea ordered a processing camp to close, leaving the fate of hundreds of asylum-seekers hanging in the balance.
The move to shutter the Australian-funded Manus island facility follows a Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday that detaining people there was unconstitutional and illegal.
Piling further pressure on Canberra, just weeks out from an expected election campaign, an Iranian refugee set himself on fire during a visit by UN officials to Nauru, the other Pacific nation where Australia sends boatpeople.
Four others on the tiny outpost reportedly attempted suicide by drinking washing powder on Tuesday.
“Respecting this (court) ruling, Papua New Guinea will immediately ask the Australian government to make alternative arrangements for the asylum-seekers currently held at the Regional Processing Centre,” Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said of the Manus camp.
Papua New Guinea’s former opposition leader Belden Namah had challenged the Manus arrangement in court, claiming it violated the rights of asylum-seekers.
In a 34-page finding on Tuesday, the Supreme Court found that detaining them on the island was “contrary to their constitutional right of personal liberty”.
Despite this, Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton remained adamant that none of the 850 or so men held there would come to his country and that the government’s policy — designed to deter others wanting to make the risky journey by boat — would not change.
Issues
“As I have said, and as the Australian government has consistently acted, we will work with our PNG partners to address the issues raised by the Supreme Court of PNG”, he said in a statement after O’Neill’s decision.
“It is also the case that the government has not resiled from its position that people who have attempted to come illegally by boat to Australia and who are now in the Manus facility will not be settled in Australia.
“We will continue discussions with the PNG government to resolve these matters.”
Canberra currently has an arrangement with Cambodia, along with Papua New Guinea, to resettle those found to be refugees, although only a handful have taken up the option.