Man held over terrorism plot
Minister slammed
SYDNEY, May 26, (Agencies): Australian counter-terrorism police said they arrested a 24-year-old man in Sydney on Thursday on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack, the latest in a string of arrests connected with radical Islamist-inspired violence.
“A Bankstown man was arrested today by the Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) Sydney as part of the ongoing Operation Appleby investigation into the alleged planning of a terrorist attack in Australia,” the Australian Federal Police said in a statement. “It will be alleged in court the man was one of a number of people - who have been previously charged regarding this matter - involved in formulating documents connected with preparations to facilitate, assist or engage a person to undertake a terrorist act.”
Last week, police carried out raids across Melbourne in connection with five men accused of planning to travel to Syria to join Islamic State via a journey that would start with a motor boat trip from Australia to Indonesia.
The men, aged between 21 and 31, were charged with preparing to enter a foreign country “for the purpose of engaging in hostile activities”, an offence that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
Identified
The five, who were not identified, were arrested after towing a seven-metre (23-foot) motor boat almost 3,000-km (1,865 miles) from Melbourne to Cairns in the northern state of Queensland.
In an unrelated incident on the same day, police in Sydney arrested an 18-year-old man for allegedly planning to obtain a gun to commit a terrorist act targeting public buildings or landmarks in the city.
Australia, a staunch US ally, has been on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown radicals since 2014 and authorities say they have thwarted a number of plots. There have been several “lone wolf” assaults, including a 2014 cafe siege in Sydney that left two hostages and the gunman dead.
About 100 people have left Australia for Syria to fight alongside organizations such as Islamic State, Australia’s Immigration Minister said last month.
Also in 2014, police shot dead a Melbourne teenager after he stabbed two counter-terrorism officers. A 15-year-old boy fired on an accountant at police headquarters in a Sydney suburb last October and was then killed in a gunfight with police.
Meanwhile, Australia’s deputy prime minister was slammed as “ignorant” Thursday after suggesting that Jakarta deliberately sent asylum-seeker boats as payback for Canberra halting live cattle exports to Indonesia.
Debate
Barnaby Joyce, who also holds the agriculture portfolio, made the comments during a debate as part of campaigning for national elections on July 2.
“Might I remind you that when we closed down the live animal export industry, it was around about the same time that we started seeing a lot of people arriving in boats in Australia,” Joyce said Wednesday night.
“They (Jakarta) accepted us as a reasonable trading partner; we proved overnight that we weren’t, we created immense bad will in the region we live.”
The Labor Party, in power at the time, temporarily banned live cattle exports to Indonesia in 2011 after a television expose of shocking cases of animal cruelty and abuse at 12 Indonesian abattoirs.
It came as Australia was struggling to deal with a flood of asylum-seeker boat arrivals, mostly from Indonesia.
Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten, contesting what is shaping up to be a close election with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, said Joyce was “talking rubbish”.
“I think it’s a really, really ignorant remark,” he said Thursday.
“You know, it’s one thing if he wants to have a fight with Johnny Depp about his wife’s dogs, that just makes us a figure of fun.
“But when he starts weighing into foreign policy, I think he should best leave that to the grownups in the room.”
Joyce has been in a war of words with Hollywood star Depp that stemmed from his wife Amber Heard failing to declare the couple’s two dogs when they arrived in Queensland state a year ago.