The Muslim spiritual leader of a group of men charged with planning violent jihad in Australia, was not a terrorist and was not plotting to kill former Prime Minister John Howard, his lawyer told a court on Wednesday. Australia’s biggest terrorism trial has heard that 12 Muslim men, including spiritual leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika, had talked about staging a bombing attack that would force Australia to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Australia has about 550 combat troops in Iraq, which it plans to withdraw by about the middle of 2008. Australia also has about 1,000 troops in Afghanistan. Benbrika, 47, who praised al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as a “great man”, told the group that Australia was a land at war and jihad was justified, the prosecutor has told the court.
“He is a man who is not a terrorist,” defence lawyer Remy van de Wiel said on Wednesday in opening his case, reported Australian Associated Press from the court. He said the group was not a terrorist organisation, it did not have weapons, explosives or ammunition and did not have a plot to kill Howard. The prosecutor said police raids on the men’s homes had found literature on how to make bombs and video tapes with messages from Osama bin Laden and showing beheadings.