MELBOURNE, Apr 21: Another teenager was today charged with terrorism-related offences following police raids over an alleged Islamic State-inspired plot to carry out attacks at a ceremony commemorating martyred soldiers in Australia.
It came after the arrest of a 14-year-old British boy in the UK over an alleged terror plot at a World War I centenary event in Australia.
The 18-year-old man who was being held on a Preventative Detention order without charge was released last night but promptly re-arrested, according to media reports, state police and Australian Federal Police who confirmed the arrest. He is due to appear before Melbourne Magistrates Court today.
The accused from the suburb of Hampton Park was charged with conspiracy to commit acts done in preparation for, or planning terrorist acts, police said.
On Saturday, Over 200 police officials carried out anti- terror raids across Melbourne and arrested five teenagers over an alleged plan to attack Anzac Day parade ceremonies. Though police arrested five men, only three were charged as two had been released without charge.
Sevdet Besim, 18, was charged with conspiring to commit a terrorist act and had appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court. He was remanded in custody to reappear on Friday, police said.
Narre Warren, 18, was also charged on summons with weapons offences. He is due to appear in court at a later date. Another teenager was charged along with them. The two other men, aged 18 and 19, were released pending further inquiries, police said.
Police have alleged that the two 18-year-olds charged were planning an IS-inspired attack at a Melbourne Anzac Day event targeting police officers. The plot reportedly involved running a police officer over and then killing him with a knife, according to an ABC program.
The arrested teenagers are said to have closer links with a senior Australian jihadist Neil Prakash, 23, who is said to be of Fijian-Indian and Cambodian background, police said.
Prakash, said to be a convert, travelled to Syria in early 2013 where he was known as Abu Khalid al-Cambodi. He is now the chief recruiter of Australians for IS, taking over after the death of Mohammed Ali Baryalei last year. Authorities believe Prakash was crucial to the Anzac Day plot.
“It seems that Prakash has stepped in as the Baryalei Mark II, and that’s significant. That makes him, like Baryalei before him, the highest ranking Australian within Islamic State we’re aware of,” Greg Barton, director at Monash University’s Global Terrorism Research Centre, said.
“Islamic State is sort of like a comet with a long tail, it’s got a very tight nucleus then a long diffuse tail. It looks as if Prakash is right in that nucleus. And the core media group there [in Syria] is their media council, he would seem to be involved with them and their recruitment body,” Barton added. (PTI)
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