|
<< Back
Australian Tip Led to Arrests
Tom Allard and Cynthia Banham
The Sydney Morning Herald
October 31, 2006
TERRORISM CHARGES
TWO Australian-born brothers of Anglo-Celtic background arrested in Yemen on terrorism charges after information was passed on by Australian security agencies.
The brothers, along with another Australian of Polish extraction, were arrested two weeks ago, suspected of being members of an al-Qaeda cell and plotting to smuggle arms to Somalia.
All three men are from NSW, and security sources say they have links to the Ayub brothers, who allegedly set up a Jemaah Islamiah cell in Australian in the late 1990s .
Sydney lawyer Adam Houda said he had been contacted by the family of the two brothers. He described them as devout, law-abiding Muslims who had only recently gone to the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, with their families to further their religious instruction.
"They wouldn't be out of place in Byron Bay," he said of the two brothers, who he confirmed were of Anglo-Saxon background. "The family is very, very upset and they believe there is no doubt the Australian Government is responsible ... they used to get hassled in Australia by ASIO and some people intervened when they were flying out of the country."
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, saluted the detention of the men in Parliament yesterday.
"We welcome the determination by Yemeni authorities to address terrorism," Mr Downer said. "This is a country where there have been a number of terrorist attacks over the years - most prominently the attack on the USS Cole, but also there have been attacks that Australians have been caught up in over the years."
The Prime Minister added: "If they have broken the law or been involved in terrorism, well they deserve everything they get."
The two brothers are aged 18 and 21, Mr Houda said, and were arrested "less than a month" after they arrived in the Yemen.
The sting - which led to the arrest of eight men, including a Dane, a Briton, a German and a Somali - is believed to have been orchestrated by the CIA, and there were suggestions the men could be whisked away to Guantanamo Bay to be interrogated.
A spokesman for the Attorney-General and the Department of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on any involvement by Australia in the arrests. The Herald has also received unconfirmed information from security sources that some of the three men have links to the Ayub brothers, two Indonesian men who set up a Jemaah Islamiah cell in Australia in the late 1990s.
The link is believed to be through the wife of Abdul Rahim Ayub, an Australian woman named Rabiah Hutchison.
Ayub and his wife fled Australia in the immediate aftermath of the Bali bombings. He is believed to be living in the slums surrounding Jakarta.
Mr Houda declined to comment on any links, but said there was great concern that the Australians would be tortured.
Yemen, he said, had an "appalling human rights record".
He also said that early reports that the men had converted to Islam this year were false, at least as far as the two brothers were concerned.
"They were born and raised into the religion," he said.
Moreover, they had not studied at the Iman University run by Sheik Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, who is listed in the US as an al-Qaeda supporter.
However, a Yemeni Interior Ministry official said: "Preliminary investigations indicate that they are members of al-Qaeda".
Yemeni officials said they were arrested attempting to smuggle light arms to Somalia, a short boat trip from Yemen across the Gulf of Aden.
The Islamic Courts Union, an Islamist group, took control of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, but has since struggled to consolidate its position.
<< Back
|
