Minister vetoes terrorist parole
THE man who plotted to blow up the national electricity grid and Army bases as part of an al-Qaeda-linked terror attack will remain in jail with his parole bid quashed by the Federal Government.
Faheem Khalid Lodhi became Australia’s first Islamic terrorist convicted of a home soil mass casualty attack when in June 2006 he was sentenced to 20 years’ jail for his plot on Sydney.
The Pakistan-born architect was eligible for parole this weekend but News Corp has learned Attorney-General Christian Porter has blocked his bid for freedom.
Under federal law the Attorney-General reviews the cases of those up for release from serious charges, considering a range of factors including “community safety”.
Lodhi, who was an extremist Sunni Muslim when arrested and angry at Australia’s role in the first Iraq war, has since moderated his views in jail but is still considered a risk by authorities.
In Goulburn’s Supermax he has been leading moderate Islamic prayer sessions and lessons for the prison population and has even been conducting jail house marriage ceremonies. His automatic parole is now to be reviewed every 12 months until his release or sentence ends in 2026.
His trial heard Lodhi had ties to the al-Qaeda-linked Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and was involved with French terrorist Willie Brigitte who was dispatched to Australia to carry out various attacks including on Holsworthy military base and Victoria Barracks in Sydney and the national electricity grid.
Lodhi, who migrated to Australia in 1998, became an Australian citizen and was accepted for study at Sydney University, had ordered chemicals to make a bomb.
But his plans came unstuck when he made a dead letter drop, leaving an envelope with aerial maps in a bin at a park in Georges Hall.
ASIO had been watching as Lodhi, using a string of aliases, sat at a computer at an internet shop in Campsie and then walked around the corner to a phone box and rang a number in Pakistan later identified as belonging to a militant terrorist leader, a Mr S, who was also in contact with Brigitte and paid for his trip to Australia.
Two days later ASIO agents intercepted Lodhi’s bin drop before it could be collected.
A later search of his house found a notebook with Lodhi’s handwriting detailing how to carry out a mass terror attack, details of LeT contacts in Pakistan, and fake accounts for mobile phones he bought for Brigitte to make contact with his terror handler.
Lodhi was born on December 28, 1969 in Pakistan to a good family.
He was a devout Muslim who attended Lahore’s prestigious National College of Arts but wanted a new life and chose Australia.