Piecing together a picture of hate in Sydney terror trial

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James Madden | October 17, 2009

Article from: The Australian

THEY were a mixed bunch with a common goal. The group of nine terrorists - including an engineer, a self-confessed computer geek, a reformed Bondi party boy, a security guard and a butcher - was drawn together by the shared desire to wage violent jihad in Australia against those who did not share their extremist views.

Yesterday, after a trial lasting just shy of a year, a jury found five members of the group guilty of conspiring to commit an act in preparation for a terrorist act. Unbeknown to the jury, the group's four co-conspirators had pleaded guilty to various terrorism-related charges before the trial began.

Crucially, there was no smoking gun that linked the men to the crime. Crown prosecutor Richard Maidment SC admitted in his closing address to the NSW Supreme Court that it was a circumstantial case.

"This was a case that relied on circumstantial evidence, creating a picture in the nature of a mosaic or a large jigsaw puzzle," he said.

"The crown does not suggest that the evidence reveals that they had reached any firm conclusion as to what precise action was to be carried out, what targets were to be selected, who was actually to carry the bomb, where it was to be placed, how it was to be placed, how big it was going to be, whether it was going to be in a vehicle or in a backpack, or how it was going to be taken to the relevant target."

Indeed, the jury only needed to be satisfied that there was an agreement - unspoken or otherwise - to commit the crime. "It is not like entering into an agreement for a house or anything like that. You do not need to have written it down. You do not even need to have spoken it. An agreement, in this context, can be reached by an understanding," Mr Maidment said.

While details of their planned target remains a mystery, the jury was told the group was motivated by "a perception that the participation of Australia in the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan ... were acts of aggression against the wider Muslim community".

The men were arrested in the early hours of November 8, 2005.

A 44-year-old man was the "puppet master", according to the crown. He financed the conspiracy, attended training camps with his co-accused and was found in possession of 12 guns and almost 30,000 rounds of ammunition. A 36-year-old man was the other unofficial leader of the Sydney-based crew. He is alleged to have trained with terror organisation LET in Pakistan in 1999, and was under surveillance by ASIO for most of this decade. His nephew, 32, also attended bush training camps - said to have involved explosives training - and was found to have files on bomb-making on his computer.

Of the other two men found guilty yesterday, a 40-year-old had placed large orders for bomb-making materials, including sulphuric acid and acetone, while a 25-year-old had assisted him, and was found to be in possession of extremist material. The 40-year-old man was also said to be a key local contact for French militant Willie Brigitte, who visited Australia in 2003. The 40-year-old was charged in July 2005 with lying to ASIO about his links to Brigitte.

Before the commencement of the NSW Supreme Court trial in November last year, four co-conspirators pleaded guilty to various charges in relation to the terror plot. But the four men who had entered early guilty pleas refused to give evidence against their five co-accused, and the jury - while aware of their relationships with the men on trial - was not told they had pleaded guilty.

During the trial, only the 40-year-old man exercised his right to take the witness stand. He denied he had ever participated in paramilitary training with any of his co-accused, telling the jury the bush getaways involved "hunting, cooking and praying".

He also rejected the crown's assertion that he bought bomb-making equipment from a Melbourne science equipment supplier. He said the lab paraphernalia found by police when they raided his home in November 2005 was used by his wife to home-school their children. "I have no knowledge of whether these (items) can make bombs," he told the jury.

Along with the existence of extremist and instructional material - which was found by police at the homes of some of the men and included literature titled The Terrorist Handbook and The White Resistance Manual - the prosecution case relied heavily upon phone taps and police surveillance conducted between July 2004 to November 2005.

The 44-year-old was observed purchasing large amounts of ammunition, while on separate occasions four of the five men were said to have been in contact with a foreign-born Muslim cleric, who was also under police surveillance.

One of the men was overheard in conversation with the cleric, who said: "If we want to die for jihad, we do maximum damage ... damage to their buildings, damage to their lives."

But counsel for the 44-year-old man, David Dalton SC, told the jury the crown's case was weak and prejudicial, with notions akin to McCarthyism. "Do we have an attempt to murder? Do we have an attempt to commit a terrorist act? No, we don't. Do we have an agreement to commit a terrorist act? No, we don't.

"We have an agreement to do acts in preparation for a terrorist act. Do we know what the terrorist act is? No, we don't. We don't have an act. It is just some act, some speculative act. So we have an agreement to do acts in preparation for a speculative act. That is pretty tough, isn't it?"

But Mr Maidment said the mindset of the group was exemplified by the reactions of two of the men when arrested. The jury heard that when the 36-year-old was arrested, he shouted: "Sharia law is going to prevail throughout this land. It is going to be ruled by it. All the lands is Allah's lands. Allah created it and he's given it to the Muslims and the Muslims are going to rule in it."

When the 25-year-old was arrested, he told police: "May Allah curse you, your children and your wives."

Mr Maidment said: "Those kind of sentiments ... betray a state of mind that is consistent with people who are prepared to do just what the crown has alleged; namely, to engage in preparation for the commission of terrorist acts involving the discharge of weapons or the use of weapons or the use of firearms or the use of the detonation of explosive devices, thus, threatening, property, lives and injury."

Mr Maidment said it was telling that even though the men knew they were under surveillance, they still "sought to obtain, in significant amounts, chemicals ... clearly for the purpose of making explosive devices". "It is only defiance ... that would have prompted them to do that, not caring ultimately whether they were caught or not, save that they wanted to avoid being caught, at least for so long as it took them to put their actions into effect."

They appeared defiant to the end. Yesterday, when the foreman read out the guilty verdicts, none of the five showed any emotion. Indeed, a couple of them smiled.

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Sydney terror case guilty pleas kept from jury

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Sally Neighbour | October 17, 2009

Article from: The Australian

AUSTRALIA'S marathon terror trial was a jigsaw puzzle made up of a mass of circumstantial evidence, the jury was told. What the jurors didn't know was that several crucial pieces were missing from the puzzle they had to assemble.

Originally nine men were to have faced trial. But over the past year, four of them pleaded guilty to a range of offences including carrying out acts in preparation for a terrorist act, and were sentenced to between three and 14 years in prison. These facts were subject to non-publication orders issued by judge Anthony Whealy, as they could have seriously prejudiced the remaining five men's right to a fair trial. Only now can these critical pieces of the puzzle be revealed.

The four men who pleaded guilty were named during the trial as co-conspirators.

Among them was a 28-year-old Lebanese-Australian man with a troubled family background and a record of serious drug abuse which led to severe mental illness. Another was a 33-year-old refugee from Bosnia, described by neighbours as an honest, reliable family man who had become a born-again Muslim.

The four co-conspirators were troubled souls who had turned to religion to straighten themselves out. A psychologist who interviewed the 28-year-old reported: "After he began to realise he had a problem, he began to hang out with Muslims. They reminded him of God. He attended the mosque regularly (because) this made him relaxed."

It was at the notorious Haldon Street prayer room in Lakemba, Sydney, a long-time target of ASIO, that he and his associates embraced the view that Islam was under attack and it was their obligation to undertake violent jihad to defend it.

A third co-conspirator, who cannot be named, told a prison psychologist he was inspired by the London bombings of July 7, 2005. The psychologist reported: "(He) thought if he could do something similar in Australia without hurting people, it would extend awareness of aggression against Muslims and alert Australians to oppose the government and stop the nations alliance with the US."

The evidence which prompted the co-conspirators to plead guilty was highly incriminating.

In February 2005 two of the men visited a militant cleric. The cleric was heard telling the 28-year-old man in a covertly recorded conversation: "If we want to die for jihad, we do maximum damage, maximum damage. Damage to their buildings with everything and damage to their lives, just to show them."

The following month, two of the others were bugged discussing how they needed to get fit in order to "shoot some motherf***ers". One of them was also heard discussing his attempts to make an improvised explosive device using copper pipe. In June 2005 the same man bought 7500 rounds of ammunition suitable for use in a semi-automatic weapon such as an AK-47.

In October 2005, the 28-year-old man was caught at a suburban Big W store in Sydney after stealing six clocks and 140 batteries which he had hidden in chip boxes. He confessed that this constituted an act in preparation for a terrorist act. Justice Whealy, who sentenced him last month, said the clocks and batteries were items capable of constructing six timed explosive devices.

He was sentenced to a minimum prison term of just under four years, discounted due to his mental illness. His non-parole period expired this week and he was released on Thursday.

The 33-year-old, whose admission to possessing ammunition constituted a relatively minor role in the conspiracy, was released in May this year after serving his sentence of three years and six months.

an associate, "I am going to blow up the nuclear place", according to a police statement tendered in evidence at the Central Local Court in Sydney in 2007. The rocket launchers, which are believed to have been hidden in PVC pipes and buried in bushland near Sydney, have never been found. This was not part of the evidence on which the man was tried.

The four men convicted with him had also been under watch for years. They were all regular attendees at the now notorious Haldon Street, Lakemba, prayer room, which has been closely monitored by the authorities since before September 11, 2001.

One of the accused, a 40-year-old, was well known to ASIO. A devout Muslim who lived with his Australian wife and four children in Lakemba, he first came to attention for his links with the Indonesian militant group Jemaah Islamiah. In 1999 he attended bush training camps in the Blue Mountains with a JI militant sent from Malaysia to conduct such training. He was also closely linked to the Frenchman Willie Brigitte, who was dispatched to Australia in 2003 by the Pakistani militant group Lashkar e Taiba to carry out a terror attack of great size, according to French prosecutors. He was one of Brigitte's key contacts in Australia, with phone intercepts revealing that Brigitte rang him 42 times. In July 2005 he was charged with lying to ASIO about his relationship with Brigitte, after admitting to only a handful of conversations with him.

His co-accused, a 36-year-old man and that man's nephew, 32, were also high on ASIO's watchlist, as they were both believed to have undergone military training with LET. Another Australian man has described traveling with the 36-year-old in 1999 to an LET camp in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir where he says they were trained in weapons and explosives use. This was not illegal at the time as LET was yet to be proscribed by the Australian government and the assertion was not part of the evidence in the trial.

The 36-year-old was accused, along with the 44-year-old, of being one of the leaders, one of the thinkers behind the conspiracy. The 32-year-old nephew was claimed to have trained with LET in testimony provided by a Korean-American militant, Yong Ki Kwon, who said he had seen him at the camp in 2000 but admitted he could have been mistaken. The nephew denied having been there.

The fifth and youngest of the group, a 25-year-old, was also of keen interest to ASIO, mainly because of the activities of two of his brothers.

In addition to these five, another four men - all relative newcomers to the counter-terrorism watchlist - were named as co-conspirators. They were all young men with troubled backgrounds and a history of drug and alcohol use who had embraced radical Islam. The fourth was a migrant from eastern Europe, aged 33.

These four men did not face trial. Unbeknown to the jury, two of them pleaded guilty late last year to doing acts and possessing things connected with preparation for terrorist acts. Two others pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of possessing a thing to be used in a terrorist act.

The case unveiled over the last year in the Supreme Court at Parramatta began in July 2004, when ASIO and the AFP got authorisation to install telephone intercepts and listening devices and began physical surveillance of the nine men and their associates.

Within days of the operation starting, agents eavesdropping on their conversations learned that one of the men was in contact with a Muslim cleric who was well known for his militant views and who was also under surveillance. The cleric was overheard in an intercepted conversation with another follower in September 2004 discussing "doing something big ... like Spain," a reference to the 2003 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people.

The investigation cranked up a notch in December 2004, when three of the men were picked up by police riding a trail bike in the vicinity of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney. The 44-year-old man explained that they were test-riding a bike as a gift for his son, but police were not convinced, although there was no evidence the facility was a target.

As the months wore on, the alarm bells rang louder, triggered by a series of events. The 44-year-old purchased 10,000 rounds of ammunition from a Sydney gunshop. One man was monitored arranging the purchase of a similar quantity of ammunition and discussing experiments he had conducted in making an improvised explosive device using copper pipe.

Most disturbing of all, the cleric was overheard telling one conspirator in February 2005: "If we want to die for jihad, we do maximum damage, maximum damage. Damage to their buildings with everything and damage to their lives, just to show them."

In March 2005, four of the conspirators went on a camping trip to a remote bush property at Curranyalpa in western NSW, the first of two excursions described by the prosecutor as bonding trips. They were booked in false names using mobile phones, which were also registered under made-up names.

By June 2005, the pace of activity was accelerating. The 40-year-old and the 44-year-old placed an order for 55 items of laboratory equipment with a supplier. The next day two others were caught loading 15 boxes of ammunition into a car, having earlier been bugged talking about how they needed to get fit to "shoot some motherf--ers".

A series of raids was carried out by ASIO and the federal police in late June 2005 to "fire a shot across the bows of the organisation", in the prosecutor's words, and flush out more evidence. But the men only escalated their activities further.

There was a surge in covert SMS contact between two ringleaders using phones in false names and coded messages in which they called each other "darling" and "sweetie" when arranging to meet. The crown alleged the men were busy caching weapons in the bush, although no such stash was found.

The development that brought the investigation to its climax was when some of the men began to order bulk loads of chemicals.

In August 2004, 24 400ml bottles of hydrogen peroxide were found hidden on land behind one man's home. In late September another conspirator bought a further five bottles of the same chemical at two Sydney pharmacies. Six days later, two of the men went to Autoking in Punchbowl and ordered 200l of sulphuric acid. The same day the 25-year-old placed an order with another supplier for 200l of methylated spirits, 50l of hydrochloric acid, 25kg of citric acid and 20l of glycerine. In separate outings to two hardware stores, the 40-year-old ordered a further 200l of methylated spirits and 120l of acetone. The chemicals are known precursors for high-powered explosives such as HMTD and TATP, known as the mother of Satan.

By late 2005 ASIO and the AFP were convinced it was time to act. But it was still unclear exactly what offence the men had committed under the existing counter-terrorism laws, which required that a specific terrorist attack had to be conceived.

In early November, after prime minister John Howard was briefed on the investigation, federal parliament was recalled for an emergency session in which the wording of the terror laws was changed from "the terrorist act" to "a terrorist act". Four days later, on November 8, 2005, Australia's largest counter-terrorism operation moved into its final phase, and the arrests were made in a series of raids.

It took three years for commonwealth prosecutors to bring the case to court as they compiled what one defence counsel called a "tsunami" of evidence. It included more than 3000 exhibits, testimony from 300 witnesses, 18 hours of telephone intercepts and 30 days worth of surveillance material.

In September last year, the prosecution scored a major breakthrough when people started pleading guilty.

The guilty pleas were a coup. But unfortunately for the police and prosecutors, the four men who pleaded would not be interviewed or give evidence against their co-accused. So precisely what terrorist act they might have committed had their plans come to fruition remains a mystery. And the case against the five men left to face trial remained entirely circumstantial.

Prosecutor Richard Maidment SC admitted there was no smoking gun and no clear evidence as to what action was to be carried out and what targets were to be selected. The case, he said, was a large mosaic, a jigsaw puzzle for the jury to put together.

After 40 weeks of hearings and 23 days of deliberation, the 12 men and women of the jury ultimately accepted the crown version of events

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Five convicted in Australian jihad plot

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"Defense attorneys said the men were just hunting and camping."

An update on this story. "Five convicted in Australia of terror," from CNN, October 16:

(CNN) -- Five men were convicted Friday in Sydney, Australia, of trying to commit terrorist acts in the country's longest-ever terror trial, court officials said.

The guilty verdicts came after a jury deliberated for 23 days, according to a statement from the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

The men -- Mohamed Ali Elomar, Abdul Rakib Hasan, Khaled Cheikho, Moustafa Cheikho and Mohammed Omar Jamal -- were found guilty of "conspiracy to do acts in preparation for a terrorist act or acts."

The men will be sentenced on December 14.

About 300 witnesses testified in the 10-month trial, in which prosecutors used about 18 hours of recorded telephone conversations to prove that the men were planning a terror attack in Australia.

The suspects were connected to four other suspects who had earlier pleaded guilty to charges that included acquiring weapons, hydrochloric acid and bombs for an attack.

The men were arrested in November 2005 after a raid at a home.

"They were stockpiling weapons, but we don't know what the intended target was," said Sonya Zadel, a court spokeswoman, who would not reveal which terror group the men were connected to.

The Australian Broadcast Corporation said three of the men had trained at paramilitary camps in western New South Wales to prepare for the attacks. But defense attorneys said the men were just hunting and camping.

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Homegrown terror cell guilty of plot against Australia

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Katelyn Catanzariti

October 16, 2009 11:00pm

THEY claimed the explosive chemicals found in their homes were for testing cosmetics or their children's science projects.

They said firearms, ammunition, night vision goggles, maps and radios were to be used on hunting trips in western NSW, while the compasses were so the devout Muslims knew the direction of Mecca at prayer time.

Trips to Melbourne to visit a notorious Islamic religious teacher were for marriage guidance and help with an "exorcism", they explained.

But after a 10-month trial, 300 witnesses, more than 3000 pieces of evidence, and almost five weeks of deliberations, a NSW Supreme Court jury has found five men from Sydney's southwest guilty of plotting violent jihad on Australian soil.

So-called group leaders Khaled Cheikho, 36, and Mohamed Ali Elomar, 44, together with Moustafa Cheikho, 32, Abdul Rakib Hasan, 40, and 25-year-old Mohammed Omar Jamal were accused of plotting with each other and at least four other men between July 2004 and November 2005.

Raids on the men's homes at the time of their arrests in 2005 revealed a stockpile of firearms and ammunition, chemicals, extremist literature and a "substantial amount" of camping equipment which the Crown said was "for lying low or disappearing either before, or immediately after the commission of a terrorist act".

A search of Elomar's house revealed 12 guns, including two high-powered rifles and a total of 28,000 rounds of ammunition – enough for one person to fire continuously for 38 hours, the court was told.

All five men pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiring to commit an act, or acts, in preparation for a terrorist act.

But yesterday the jury found them guilty of stockpiling the explosive chemicals and firearms with the intention of carrying out "extreme violence".

The four other men connected to the plot – Mazen Touma, Mirsad Mulahalilovic, Khaled Sharrouf and one man who cannot be named for legal reasons – pleaded guilty to acts in preparation for a terrorist act prior to the trial or earlier this year and have been sentenced.

Mulahalilovic was released in May this year after serving three and a half years for possessing ammunition in preparation for a terrorist act.

Sharrouf walked free from jail on Thursday, having served nearly four years for possessing six clocks and 140 batteries connected to the preparation for a terrorist act or acts.

Touma will not be released until May 2016, after being sentenced to ten and a half years, and the fourth man is due for release in November 2019 after serving 14 years, after both pleaded guilty to four charges relating to preparations for a terrorist act.

The jury had been told the men were devout Muslims driven by extremist beliefs to plot a violent jihad with the aim of terrifying the Australian public in retaliation for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Each of these men were apparently strong adherents to the Islamic faith and were each motivated by a particular religious, political or ideological cause – being the pursuit of violent jihad – which each of the accused apparently believed was founded in the teachings of the Islamic faith," prosecutor Richard Maidment SC said as he opened his case in a Sydney court last November.

"In essence, that meant that the accused were motivated to carry out violent activities against members of the Australian community as a whole, in pursuit of their ideals."

Together the group had spent months working to acquire chemicals, firearms and ammunition, the jury was told.

Extremist literature and "instructional DVDs" about building home-made bombs and suicide bombers' belts found in their homes showed the men had violent intent, Mr Maidment said.

The group met regularly with Melbourne cleric Sheikh Bakr, who has previously described Osama bin Laden as "a great man" and who once said he would be betraying his religion if he told his students not to train as terrorists.

In his summing up to the jury, Justice Anthony Whealy said the Crown asserted the men had been influenced by the teachings of the mujahideen.

"You kill us, so we kill you. You bomb us, so we bomb you," the mujahideen's advice goes.

Mr Maidment said the literature glorified the actions of "notorious persons" such as bin Laden.

"They possessed large quantities of literature which supported indiscriminate killing, mass murder and martyrdom in pursuit of violent jihad, and which apparently sought to provide religious justification for conduct of that nature," Mr Maidment said.

They also possessed instructions for assembling home-made chemical bombs, as well as images of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.

The Crown submitted the men intended to influence, by intimidation, the Australian government's policy on the Middle East conflicts by using explosive devices or firearms to commit "extreme violence".

In March and April 2005 the men took hunting trips to two properties near Bourke in northwestern NSW.

Four years earlier it was revealed by The Courier-Mail that ASIO was investigating claims a property south of Canberra may have been used as a terror training camp – that property was owned by four of Elomar's brothers.

Mr Maidment said that while the various pieces of evidence might be circumstantial on their own, together they made up "a mosaic or jigsaw puzzle" or "factual matrix" that showed a terrorist plot was on the agenda – even though no direct reference to one was made.

"This isn't a case where there is a smoking gun," he said.

Lawyers for the five on trial maintained there were innocent explanations for much of the material relied on by the crown. They labelled the Crown case a "propagandist" bid based on misrepresentations .

Circumstantial or not, the jury found the evidence compelling enough to find all five men guilty. After the jury handed down its verdict, Justice Whealy thanked the five women and seven men for their "significant and unique achievement".

"If you really go through the case and the words in the brief, you'll know it's bullshit," the brother of Mohammed Omar Jamal said. "If they think this will stop terrorism, imprisoning these people, I don't think it will stop terrorism.

"I think it will increase the threat on Australia . . . when the people overseas, when they see this". A sentencing hearing for all five men will begin on December 14.

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Aussie jihad stopped in its tracks

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FIVE would-be jihadists found guilty of conspiring to plan a devastating terrorist attack in Sydney face the prospect of life behind bars - but two fellow plotters have already walked free from prison.

Two of the men pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of knowingly possessing items connected with the preparation of a terrorist act.

With time already served since their arrest in November 2005, one of the men was released on parole in May, while the other was freed on Thursday.

The men were named as co-conspirators in the 10-month trial of their five friends. None of the men can be named online.

Police yesterday revealed the $37.2 million cost of the operation, the landmark joint investigation between ASIO and Australian Federal Police that netted the terror nine in a series of co-ordinated dawn raids on November 8, 2005.

After one of the longest and most expensive criminal trials in NSW history, five men were found guilty by a jury yesterday of conspiring to do acts in preparation for a terrorist act or acts.

Related Coverage

• Terror plotters: Race to stop hand of evil

The men, all devout Muslims, now face possible maximum sentences of life imprisonment for entering into an agreement to wage violent jihad on Australian soil, said to have been motivated by the Howard government's military committment to US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Between them, the men also had instructional material for how to mix explosive chemicals and how to assemble and detonate bombs.

NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipioni yesterday stressed the importance of continuing to fund anti-terrorism efforts.

"I can not stress strongly enough that complacency in this sort of area is a terrorist's best friend," he said.

More than 400 NSW Police officers and 250 AFP, ASIO and NSW Crime Commission officers were attached to the counter-terrorism operation.

Outside court, the ringleader's sister criticised ASIO.

"ASIO are extreme. They go to depths. They want to get to the bottom of it. They want to find their answer," she said.

"We want to find our answers. I know my answer - my answer is I know my brother is innocent."

The nephew of the conspiracy ringleader said his uncle was innocent and said his uncle's possession of guns was to hunt deer in bushland near Goulburn.

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Race to stop the hand of evil

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FOR months, the nine Sydney men played a game of cat and mouse - aware ASIO was watching their every move while they continued to quietly hoard high-powered weapons and ammunition in preparation for an attack on a scale this city has never seen and hopefully never will.

They placed orders at their local hardware stores for bulk amounts of sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen peroxide and other bomb ingredients, leaving false names and numbers and always paying in cash.

They went on trips to remote Outback properties where they shot up the trees as target practice. The readers among them kept copies of the Howard government's anti-terror laws handy.

They thought they were safe because their plan had never been set down in writing, meaning there was no agreed target or methodology police could pin on them.

They were wrong.

In November 2005, the Government introduced a last-minute change to the legislation allowing police to carry out arrests if they had reasonable grounds to suspect a terror plot was being planned.

Related Coverage

• Conspirators: Aussie jihad stopped in its tracks

The changes triggered a frenzy of chatter between the men and their wives - one of whom was heard by ASIO saying, "They're gonna raid us."

The men began buying lengths of PVC pipe and sealing tape in preparation for burying the evidence they had amassed in a military-style weapons cache.

Police knew they had to move fast and over the weekend of November 6 and 7 in 2005, they put together one of the most successful joint operations ever carried out between ASIO, Australian Federal Police and NSW Police.

In a series of co-ordinated raids across Sydney's southwest, officers from the anti-terror operation swooped on the men's homes in the early hours of November 8, combing their properties for evidence of a terror plot. Rifles, pistols and a huge quantity and range of ammunition were seized, along with drums of chemicals and an unusually large assortment of batteries.

Many of the items bagged as evidence that day were likely to be found in any ordinary household, like barbecue starters, torches, camping gear, CDs and literature.

Nevertheless, police had enough to charge eight of the men - and about a month later they charged the ninth - with conspiring to do acts in preparation for a terrorist act or acts between July 2004 and November 2005.

In a landmark verdict, a 12-member jury yesterday validated the authorities' suspicions by finding five of the men guilty.

The Supreme Court trial opened in November last year before Justice Anthony Whealy in a purpose-built courtroom in the new Western Sydney Justice Precinct in Parramatta.

Before the Crown opened its case, Justice Whealy urged the jury not to speculate about why the fellow conspirators were not facing trial along with the main accused.

As revealed today, these men pleaded guilty to the lesser crime of knowingly possessing items connected with the preparation of a terrorist act and two of them have already been released on parole.

With time served since his arrest in November 2005, one of the men who pleaded guilty to storing ammunition and explosives in his home, was freed in May after three years and six months in jail. He will serve the balance of nine months on parole.

Another was released on Thursday after three years and 11 months in custody and will serve the balance of one year and three months on parole.

More than 3000 exhibits were tendered during the trial of the five men found guilty yesterday. The jury also heard oral evidence from more than 300 witnesses.

Crown Prosecutor Richard Maidment urged the jury to view the many thousands of pieces of evidence, including the seemingly innocuous household items seized - as parts of a jigsaw puzzle which fit together to form a powerful circumstantial case.

The jury heard the men were all devout Muslims who met at a prayer hall on the third level of Lakemba Arcade on Haldon St, Lakemba. They all subscribed to a fundamentalist brand of Islam espoused by a self-styled preacher, who claimed the Australian Government's actions in sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan was sufficient reason under Islamic law to carry out violent jihad.

Even though there was no formal or written agreement of the conspiracy between the men, he said each of them took steps to advance it. In doing so, he said the men intended that the act, when carried out, would cause damage to property and create a serious risk to the safety of the public.

The court heard the men each had different roles and used coded SMS messages, using the false names "Sandra" and "Dave" and peppering them with endearments like "babe" and "darling".

Some of the men gathered weapons and ammunition to advance the agreement, while others placed bulk orders of chemicals in false names to make the explosive TATP - known as "Mother of Satan" - used in the London tube and bus bombings in 2006.

At least four of them went on two trips to remote properties in outback NSW where, Mr Maidment claimed, military-style training camps were held.

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