TERROR PLOT TO KILL 1000, COURT TOLD

26 February 2008

THE leader of an alleged home-grown Muslim terrorist group talked of an attack that would kill 1000 people, a Melbourne terror trial heard today.

Abdul Nacer Benbrika, 47, said that in order to make the Government withdraw Australian troops from Iraq a large-scale operation was needed.

Prosecutor Richard Maidment SC said that Mr Benbrika, in conversation with another member of the terror group, said an attack was needed that "would make the Government sit up and take notice".

"They were intending something big," Mr Maidment told the jury in his opening statement.

"To cause maximum damage. To cause the death of a thousand.... by use of a bomb."

The group of Melbourne men bent on violent Jihad planned terrorist attacks on football games or train stations to maximise deaths, the jury was told.