Brothers had plans for bomb, jury told

SYDNEY: Two brothers plotted to bring down an Etihad flight out of Sydney with a bomb hidden in a meat grinder and to expose people to a lethal poisonous gas in a confined space, a jury has been told.

The Sydney siblings plotted with their older brother, Tarek Khayat, who was involved with Islamic State in Syria, and ‘‘the controller’’, an unidentified person connected with the older brother, prosecutor Lincoln Crowley QC said.

He was opening the Crown case this week at the New South Wales Supreme Court trial of Khaled Mahmoud Khayat (52) and Mahmoud Khayat (34).

They have pleaded not guilty to conspiring — between January 20 and July 29 in 2017 — to do acts in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act.

Mr Crowley said the first plot involved getting a bomb and putting it in a meat grinder on a plane flying out of Sydney international airport.

When the plot was abandoned at the airport, the two brothers drove to a family home with the meat grinder containing the improvised explosive device, the prosecutor said.

Some parts were put in a bin while the older brother allegedly placed other parts in the garage of his Lakemba home.

Khaled Khayat then proposed that he himself would arrange to take the bomb, Mr Crowley said.

‘‘The controller told him not to do that because he had to stay for the continuation of the work here and had to find someone else,’’ he said.

The prosecutor said the second plot involved poisonous gas which the older brother was going to make at his home following instructions given by the controller. The trial continues before Justice Christine Adamson. —