Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
A man accused of playing a role in a terrorist plot which killed police employee Curtis Cheng had an “extremist mindset” at the time of the shooting, a court has been told.
Mustafa Dirani is facing a trial over his alleged involvement in the fatal shooting outside the NSW Police Headquarters in Parramatta in 2015.
Mr Cheng, a police accountant, was fatally gunned down as he walked out of work on October 2, 2015 by a radicalised 15-year-old.
The teen killer, Farhad Jabar, was subsequently slain in a shootout with police officers.
The court was told police seized Mr Dirani’s phone which contained a number of WhatsApp messages in a messaging group with his alleged co-conspirators.
Within the group, the court heard he shared images and videos related to beheadings and suicide bombs and repeatedly expressed “extremist views”.
Mr Staehli alleged that Mr Dirani was surrounded by friends and associates with extremist mindsets, including the radicalised Mr Jabar.
The two had both attended the mosque in Parramatta on the day Mr Cheng was killed, the court was told.
Mr Dirani was standing outside the mosque with his friend Raban Alou when the latter spoke on the phone to Talal Alameddine.
After the call, Mr Staehli told the court Mr Alou stepped close to Mr Dirani and “held him close … perhaps whispered in his ear”.
The pair drove off in separate cars to two locations in western Sydney before parking in the carpark Merrylands park, where they had a conversation that was picked up by a police listening device.
“Mr Alou was saying things to Mr Dirani that were consistent with Mr Dirani being a party to what was going on between Mr Alou and Mr Alameddine,” the crown prosecutor said.
The crown alleges Mr Alameddine arrived on a bicycle and left the pair with a mysterious parcel. hey drove off to Wentworthville where Mr Alou extracted a long white object from Mr Dirani’s car before the latter left, Mr Staehli claimed. The crown alleges Mr Alou delivered a package containing a pistol to Mr Jabar, who then walked out of the mosque and shot Mr Cheng in the back of the head at 4.30pm. “(The 15-year-old) was on a mission for IS, trying to advance the cause of IS, trying to kill someone,” Mr Staehli said.
He alleges Mr Dirani acted to further the cause by participating in planning the terror attack and providing the pistol.
He was 22 years old at the time of the alleged offences, which occurred when the threat of ISIS was becoming more apparent globally.
The defence will present its case on Thursday before Judge Deborah Sweeney.
The trial is expected to run for more than six weeks.
