[ADN Kronos] Three more men have been charged in Australia with plotting a suicide attack on a Sydney army base. One of the men, Wissam Fattal, had an angry outburst when he appeared in a court in the southern city of Melbourne on Wednesday.Fattal was charged with preparing to carry out a terrorist act, and was already in custody on other matters. Thirty-three year-old Fattal told the court he was not a terrorist and accused Australian troops of killing innocent people abroad. "You call me a terrorist but I've never killed anyone in my life," Fattal told the judge. "You send troops to Iraq to kill innocent people."
Fattal is one of five men, mostly from Melbourne's northern suburbs, held in custody in overnight and questioned about an alleged plot to launch a suicide mission on the Holsworthy Army barracks.
Yacqub Khayre, 22, is also charged with preparing for a terrorist act, while Saney Aweys, 26, and Abdirahman Ahmed, 25, are charged with aiding and abetting a man to engage in hostile acts abroad, including the civil war in Somalia. The men were arrested in massive police raids in Melbourne on Tuesday. The suspects are Australian nationals of Somali and Lebanese descent and are believed to have links with the Islamist Al-Shabab group in Somalia.
Another suspect, 25-year-old Nayaf El Sayed, was charged with the same offence. He did not enter a plea or apply for bail, and refused to stand for the magistrate in court. A fifth man was expected to be charged later on Wednesday.
Earlier, a police statement said that "police believe members of a Melbourne-based group have been undertaking planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia and [are] allegedly involved in hostilities in Somalia".
"The men's intention was to actually go into the army barracks and to kill as many soldiers as they could before they themselves were killed," said Tony Negus, acting chief commissioner of the Australian federal police.
The attack would have been the most serious terrorist attack on Australian soil, Negus added. "Members of the group have been actively seeking a fatwa or religious ruling to justify a terror attack on Australia," he said.
Prosecutors told the court they had evidence some of the men had taken part in training and fighting in Somalia.