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Enough to build 15 bombs

High security … police frisk a man yesterday as he enters Liverpool Hospital, where the wounded suspect and actor Omar Baladjam, below, is being held after guns were fired on Tuesday.
Photo: Brendan Esposito

The Sydney arm of the alleged Islamic terrorist group raided this week had stockpiled enough chemicals to make at least 15 large bombs to be used against selected targets, police say.

Only chemicals freely available at hardware stores were then needed for the group to be able to replicate the formula used to make the bombs that killed 52 people - and four suicide bombers - in the attacks in London on July 7, senior investigators say.

Senior police decided at the weekend to stage Tuesday's raids on dozens of properties in Sydney and Melbourne because they believed the Sydney suspects were so advanced they could have produced bombs within days.

The investigators say the group registered a series of company names to justify the purchase of industrial chemicals.

Police said they had also learned that suspects in Melbourne and Sydney had made legal appointments, leading intelligence analysts to believe they may have been planning to write wills.

Last night, seven of the eight men arrested in Sydney were transferred to high-security jails outside the city. Two high-speed convoys headed towards maximum-security prisons at Goulburn and Lithgow, the only NSW jails that meet the requirements for housing inmates with the recently introduced AA security classification for terrorists.

The eighth Sydney suspect, the bit-part actor Omar Baladjam, 28, who was wounded in an exchange of fire with police on Tuesday, was charged yesterday with attempting to murder police, malicious wounding, and terrorism and firearms offences during a bedside court hearing at Liverpool Hospital.

Adam Houda, the lawyer representing all the Sydney suspects, lashed out at "trial by media" and "irresponsible" comments by politicians in the wake of the arrests in Australia's biggest national security operation.

As the political debate on the new terrorism laws continued yesterday, the leading Sydney Muslim cleric Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly challenged the Prime Minister's assertion that the laws were not aimed at the Muslim community.

In Melbourne, two of the nine men arrested and charged in that city - including one who allegedly volunteered to become a suicide bomber - were refused bail and remanded with their seven co-accused to appear in court next January. Magistrate Reg Marron noted the ease with which the internet offered access to the bomb-making instructions allegedly seen by one of the alleged terrorist cells.

But Mr Marron also questioned the timing of the arrests and suggested the Melbourne raids could have occurred months earlier. And he said there was little evidence linking the Sydney and Melbourne groups. "The state of the prosecution case … can best be described as a work in progress," Mr Marron said.

The two men appearing were Abdullah Merhi, 20, and Hany Taha, 31. It is alleged that Merhi had volunteered to be a suicide bomber, but Brian Walters, SC, representing Taha, said it was clear there was no basis to the claim that an attack in Melbourne was imminent. Rob Stary, for Merhi, said comments by senior police and politicians had in effect removed the presumption of innocence for the accused men.

It is understood that Victorian police believe they had gathered sufficient evidence as part of Operation Pandanus to arrest the Melbourne suspects at least a month ago, but waited for more information to be gathered on the alleged Sydney cell before the co-ordinated raids were staged.

Police are using technology experts to break codes on the computer hard drives of some of the suspects. They hope to establish the identity of a group of men who have flown from overseas using false names to visit some of the Australian suspects.