National Nine News
Thursday Apr 17 18:15 EST
MCG bomb plot is a lie, lawyer alleges
Revelations that terrorists planned to blow up the MCG and other Melbourne landmarks were the fabrications of a practised liar, a court has heard.
Izzydeen Atik, a would-be terrorist who befriended the 12 men facing trial in Australia’s largest terror trial, made the startling claims earlier this week.
Mr Atik said the group’s leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika had told of the plans in August 2005.
Police arrested Mr Atik in November 2005, but he failed to mention anything about the supposed targets until last year.
Benbrika’s counsel, Remy Van de Wiel, QC, suggested to Mr Atik in the Victorian Supreme Court Thursday that no such conversation occurred.
He said it wasn’t until Mr Atik became aware of the extent of a secretly-recorded conversation involving himself and other members of the group that he invented the bomb plots.
“You made it up,” Mr Van de Wiel said.
“You fabricated that entire conversation.”
Mr Van de Wiel also attacked Mr Atik’s extensive psychiatric history, suggesting he had invented mental illnesses in order to shorten prison sentences he had received for fraud.
Stumble It!