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Terror fraudster lived high life: court
Wednesday Apr 16 18:54 AEST
A would-be terrorist who conversed with birds also lived in a luxury three-storey beachfront home, drove a BMW, had a carer and a butler, regularly called telephone sex lines and masqueraded as a high-rolling gambler, a Melbourne court was told.
Izzydeen Atik, 28, also claimed to be a "good Muslim" who wanted to join a Melbourne terrorist organisation which, he said, had plans to bomb the MCG on AFL grand final day.
A Victorian Supreme Court jury heard Atik hadn't done a day's work in six years when he moved into a beachfront villa at Williamstown in Melbourne's south-west in 2005, funding his lifestyle through credit card fraud.
He told the court he occupied the palatial home by himself, except for his brother, who fraudulently collected a carer's pension from Centrelink in return for looking after him, and the butler who ultimately replaced the brother.
Atik is a key prosecution witness in the trial of 12 men who have pleaded not guilty in Australia's largest-ever terror trial.
Having told the court Tuesday of the group's intended targets, including the MCG and Crown Casino, Atik repeatedly claimed memory loss Wednesday when cross-examined about psychological treatment he had received over several years in Sydney.
Defence counsel Remy Van de Wiel, QC, told the court Atik had a history of hearing voices in his head and had claimed to communicate with birds.
But under cross-examination, Atik told the jury he had no recollection of the voice he knew as "Andrew" or of an imaginary female he described to doctors as a "devil".
The court heard, however, that Atik had given evidence in court proceedings last year of his encounters with "Andrew".
Mr Van de Wiel, counsel for alleged terror group leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika, read to the court from a 2002 psychiatric report in which Atik claimed birds often told him their problems.
"If you spend a day with me you will see the birds follow me and talk to me," Atik allegedly told the psychiatrist who compiled the report.
The court also heard Atik had moved away from his family in Sydney after problems arose between him and relatives over his desire to marry his 16-year-old cousin.
Soon after arriving in Melbourne in 2003, he accompanied another cousin on a pilgrimage to Mecca, returning to Australia a "changed man" intent on rejecting a criminal past that included several convictions for credit card fraud.
But after meeting one of the alleged terror cell members at his local mosque, Atik was asked to use his experience to fund their plans for violent jihad.
After receiving an assurance in the form of a "fatwah" from Benbrika that stealing from non-believers was permitted by Islam, he resumed the credit card racket using the proceeds to fund the terror group and maintain his extravagant lifestyle.
He told the court he paid taxi drivers to provide him with credit card details obtained from their passengers which he then used to buy hundreds of airline tickets and mobile phone SIM cards.
The airline tickets were then sold to friends and acquaintances who paid $100 for an economy class return ticket to anywhere in Australia and $200 for business class.
The jury also heard a secretly-recorded telephone call Atik made to a sex chat line in which he offered to fly the woman at the other end of the line to Melbourne to "make me happy".
The trial before Justice Bernard Bongiorno continues Thursday.
Terror fraudster lived high life: court
Wednesday Apr 16 18:54 AEST
A would-be terrorist who conversed with birds also lived in a luxury three-storey beachfront home, drove a BMW, had a carer and a butler, regularly called telephone sex lines and masqueraded as a high-rolling gambler, a Melbourne court was told.
Izzydeen Atik, 28, also claimed to be a "good Muslim" who wanted to join a Melbourne terrorist organisation which, he said, had plans to bomb the MCG on AFL grand final day.
A Victorian Supreme Court jury heard Atik hadn't done a day's work in six years when he moved into a beachfront villa at Williamstown in Melbourne's south-west in 2005, funding his lifestyle through credit card fraud.
He told the court he occupied the palatial home by himself, except for his brother, who fraudulently collected a carer's pension from Centrelink in return for looking after him, and the butler who ultimately replaced the brother.
Atik is a key prosecution witness in the trial of 12 men who have pleaded not guilty in Australia's largest-ever terror trial.
Having told the court Tuesday of the group's intended targets, including the MCG and Crown Casino, Atik repeatedly claimed memory loss Wednesday when cross-examined about psychological treatment he had received over several years in Sydney.
Defence counsel Remy Van de Wiel, QC, told the court Atik had a history of hearing voices in his head and had claimed to communicate with birds.
But under cross-examination, Atik told the jury he had no recollection of the voice he knew as "Andrew" or of an imaginary female he described to doctors as a "devil".
The court heard, however, that Atik had given evidence in court proceedings last year of his encounters with "Andrew".
Mr Van de Wiel, counsel for alleged terror group leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika, read to the court from a 2002 psychiatric report in which Atik claimed birds often told him their problems.
"If you spend a day with me you will see the birds follow me and talk to me," Atik allegedly told the psychiatrist who compiled the report.
The court also heard Atik had moved away from his family in Sydney after problems arose between him and relatives over his desire to marry his 16-year-old cousin.
Soon after arriving in Melbourne in 2003, he accompanied another cousin on a pilgrimage to Mecca, returning to Australia a "changed man" intent on rejecting a criminal past that included several convictions for credit card fraud.
But after meeting one of the alleged terror cell members at his local mosque, Atik was asked to use his experience to fund their plans for violent jihad.
After receiving an assurance in the form of a "fatwah" from Benbrika that stealing from non-believers was permitted by Islam, he resumed the credit card racket using the proceeds to fund the terror group and maintain his extravagant lifestyle.
He told the court he paid taxi drivers to provide him with credit card details obtained from their passengers which he then used to buy hundreds of airline tickets and mobile phone SIM cards.
The airline tickets were then sold to friends and acquaintances who paid $100 for an economy class return ticket to anywhere in Australia and $200 for business class.
The jury also heard a secretly-recorded telephone call Atik made to a sex chat line in which he offered to fly the woman at the other end of the line to Melbourne to "make me happy".
The trial before Justice Bernard Bongiorno continues Thursday.