Australian Court Finds Lebanese National Guilty of Plotting to Blow up Airliner | World Defense

Australian Court Finds Lebanese National Guilty of Plotting to Blow up Airliner

Khafee

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Nov 17, 2017
Messages
12,324
Reactions
24,463 1,293 0
Australian Court Finds Lebanese National Guilty of Plotting to Blow up Airliner
Saturday, 21 September, 2019 - 07:15

amer_khayyat_holds_his_australian_passport_after_his_release_from_roumieh_prison_east_of_the_capital_beirut_on_monday._ap.jpg

Amer Khayyat holds his Australian passport after his release from Roumieh prison east of the capital Beirut on Monday. (AP)

An Australian court has found a Lebanese man guilty of planning to blow up an Etihad Airways flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi nearly two years ago with a bomb hidden in a meat grinder, a spokeswoman for the New South Wales Supreme Court said on Friday.

Police had accused the man, Mahmoud Khayyat, and his brother Khaled Khayyat of planning two terrorist attacks: the bomb and a chemical gas attack on the flight to Abu Dhabi in July 2017.

Khaled was found guilty by the New South Wales Supreme Court in May, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict against Mahmoud. His retrial ended with a guilty verdict on Thursday afternoon for planning “the terrorist act,” the spokeswoman said.

Khaled and Mahmoud Khayyat were arrested after police raids in Sydney. Police had said that high-grade explosives used to make the bomb were flown from Turkey as part of a plot “inspired and directed” by ISIS.

The court will hear sentencing submissions later, the Australian Associated Press reported.

The verdict in Mahmoud’s case came only a few hours before Lebanon’s military court acquitted another brother, Amer Khayyat, of the plotting to blow up the Etihad flight.

The military court sentenced the three other Khayyat brothers - Khaled, Mahmoud and Tareq - in absentia to hard labor for life, Lebanese state news agency NNA said late on Wednesday.

Lebanon’s police said in 2017 that Tareq was an ISIS commander in Syria.

Khaled, Mahmoud and Amer were all living in Australia but occasionally visited Lebanon. Amer landed in Beirut in July 2017 on the day of the plot to smuggle the bomb onto the plane, Lebanon’s interior minister said at the time.
 

BATMAN

THINK TANK
Joined
Dec 20, 2017
Messages
1,892
Reactions
1,697 47 0
Country
Pakistan
Location
Pakistan
I think Australia should hand over this man to GCC for investigation.
 
Top