Man accused of plotting a Christmas day attack in Melbourne

A man has given evidence in court against his younger brother, one of three men accused of plotting a Christmas Day terror attack in Melbourne.

Ibrahim Abbas, 24, is the brother of 23-year-old Hamza Abbas who is standing trial alongside Ahmed Mohamed, 25, and Abdullah Chaarani, 27, accused of conspiring to ‘wage violent jihad’ in the city in 2016.

Mr Abbas is giving evidence for the prosecution.

He took the Supreme Court stand on Wednesday recalling joining the men as they purchased machetes and chemicals.

Mr Abbas revealed he had suggested Federation Square ‘is a place where a terrorist attack could occur’ and told the men to ‘just picture a terrorist attack over here’.

The conversation on December 20, 2016 happened when Mr Abbas and the three accused men decided to visit the city and maybe get some ice cream, but stopped first to talk about life and girlfriends in the square.

‘In the middle of the conversation I said ‘you know, it’s not that hard to kill someone’,’ Mr Abbas said.

CCTV footage was played in court showing Mr Abbas making a slicing motion across Mohamed’s neck.

‘And then I said “you know what, if you slice someone in the neck they die, it’s a very easy way to kill someone”,’ Mr Abbas told the court.

He earlier outlined his intention to ‘do a terrorist attack’ and wanted it to be on a day like Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve when crowds would be gathered and casualties would be higher.

‘The bigger, the more terror is achieved, and that’s the point,’ he said.

On December 21 the same year he said he joined Mohamed shopping and they looked at knives.

He left the store and Mohamed followed a few minutes later with two machetes he purchased, claiming they were for clearing bushland.

Later that day a covert listening device in Mohamed’s car captured a conversation between the two, discussing Mohamed’s wife being strapped with an explosive device.

Mr Abbas raised concerns about that alleged plot.

‘What if it doesn’t blow up on her, she gets caught? See, it’s different if we get caught … if she gets caught, her what’s-it-called, her honour, is gonna get touched,’ he said on the recording, played to the court.

‘If I get caught, my honour is not gonna get touched, I’m a man. What are they going to touch, my butthole? Female, that’s serious, bro.’

The court was told Mr Abbas and some of the accused took a trip to Chemist Warehouse earlier in December to buy hydrogen peroxide, which they planned to use to distil water and extract an explosive chemical.

He said in a discussion later Mohamed told him something to the effect of ‘what we tried to do didn’t work’.

The trial before Justice Christopher Beale and a jury of 14 continues.

Source: dailymail