Thursday, March 02, 2006

Australian Security Issues

Australian News reported by the Jewish Community Security Group, 2/3/06 ...

• Former Melbourne taxi driver “Jihad” Jack Thomas has become the first person in Australia to be convicted under new anti-terrorism laws. A Victorian Supreme Court jury found the 32-year-old Muslim convert guilty of intentionally receiving funds ... from al-Qaeda and of possessing a false passport....

• Police have launched a nationwide manhunt for Neo-Nazi, Jack van Tongeren after the 59-year-old skipped bail. It has been seven days since Mr van Tongeren, due to face trial this month on charges of conspiring to firebomb Asian restaurants, went missing. ... Van Tongeren served a twelve year jail sentence for arson attacks on Chinese restaurants in the late 1980’s.

• A White Supremacist website, hosted by an Adelaide based internet firm, has come to national attention with its racist and antisemitic content and the inclusion of a terrorist manual on its site. “White Crusaders of the RaHoWa” (Racial Holy War) is an off shoot of the US based Church of the Creator, a racist movement that worships the white race in place of a traditional deity. The group, believed to consist of a handful of members in Australia, is lead by a man named Colin Campbell.
The terrorist manual advocated attacking ethnic minority groups within Australia, and contained instructions on how to build an explosive device. The website has since been shut down after the South Australian Attorney-General referred the matter to the South Australian police.

• Paroled neo-Nazi murderer Dane Sweetman had the conditions of his parole amended on 24th January to ban him from drinking alcohol after an incident in a Melbourne pub. Sweetman, 36, who was jailed in 1990 for killing David Noble at a party celebrating Hitler’s birthday, allegedly head-butted and bashed a man at the Tote Hotel in Collingwood, after the man enquired about Sweetman’s swastika tattoo. After serving 15 of his 20 year sentence, Sweetman reportedly remains committed to his antisemitic Nazi ideology.

• 20th January: Amer Haddara, one of the suspected Melbourne terror cell members, had his application for bail rejected by the Supreme Court after evidence proffered by Australian Federal Police that Haddara had been sponsored to enter a terrorist training camp. None of the 18 men arrested in Sydney and Melbourne in November 2005 on terrorist related charges have been granted bail.

• Nearly two-hundred kilograms of explosives have been stolen in two separate incidents in the past six-months, in New South Wales and Queensland. Approximately 75 Kilograms of explosives and 135 detonators were stolen from a Coal Mining site near Glenden in Queensland between 29 September and 13 October last year. 100 Kilograms of explosives and 400 detonators were stolen from a quarry at Leeton in Southern NSW on between 3 and 4 February this year.

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