EVIDENCE in the trial of five men accused of terrorist conspiracy presented a "huge mosaic" and a "jigsaw puzzle" which when put together might present a picture of guilt, Crown counsel told the NSW Supreme Court in Parramatta.
Richard Maidment, SC, beginning his final address to the jury, said that the five accused, Mohamed Ali Elomar, Abdul Rakib Hasan, Khaled Cheikho, Moustafa Cheikho and Mohammed Omar Jamal were not "full-time terrorists".
"Nor do we say the only thing they thought about was extremist material," he said yesterday. "But the very fact that they shared it would support our contention."
The five, who went on trial before Justice Anthony Whealey last November, have pleaded not guilty of having, between mid-2004 and November 2005, conspired to prepare a terrorist act or acts.
Mr Maidment said one element in the mosaic was the figure of the radical Melbourne cleric Sheikh Bakr, whom Elomar and Hasan have visited. The involvement of Sheikh Bakr was significant because of the views he had expressed such as in an ABC interview on August 3, 2005, when he said that Islam forbade the killing of "innocent people".
Asked whether he thought anyone in Australia was not innocent, Sheikh Bakr had replied that when Muslim lambs were invaded, it was the duty of Muslims to help those who had been attacked. He had also condemned the actions of the Australian Government in sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.
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