The day one man infected a community with hatred

[Abu_Sayyaf]

The day one man infected a community with hatred
Cameron Stewart
November 12, 2005



IT was the day that changed the life of accused terrorist ringleader Abdul Nacer Benbrika. Other Muslims see it even more darkly - as the day when al-Qa'ida first infected Australia's Islamic community with its toxic distortion of Islam.

Now for the first time The Weekend Australian can reveal what unfolded on a country property in Victoria in the sunset of 1994. There, in front of the nation's leading Islamic fundamentalists, including Benbrika, a bearded cleric in flowing robes was giving a sermon which many now believe gave birth to radical Islam in Australia.

The speaker was Abu Qatada, now the spiritual leader of al-Qa'ida in Europe. Qatada had been invited to Australia by his childhood friend and fellow hardliner, Melbourne cleric Sheik Mohammed Omran. His message mesmerised the group - and Benbrika.

"He spoke out against Arab governments for not being Islamic enough, for not adhering to pure sharia law," recalls one senior Muslim who asked not to be named.

"He was radical and politicised - we had never heard this stuff before. His impact was enormous and that is where it all began. This is how the ideology of Abu Bakr (Benbrika) entered Australia. Prior to Abu Qatada's visit, most radicals were just normal guys."

One of these "normal guys" was Benbrika, an Algerian-born aircraft engineer who had arrived in Australia five years earlier.

He had recently married a young Lebanese woman and was interested in learning more about Islam and making a permanent home in Melbourne's northern suburbs. But those close to him say Benbrika was both energised and transformed by Abu Qatada's radical and pure doctrinal approach to Islam.

He was also in awe of Qatada, who was the spiritual leader of the Islamic resistance movement in Benbrika's native Algeria.

Despite having no formal religious qualifications, Benbrika determined that he would become a cleric and teach only the purest form of Islam, just like Qatada.

Abu Qatada's visit had also radicalised many of Benbrika's colleagues, who began to agitate at Preston mosque, Melbourne's largest, for a more radical interpretation of Islam.

"We did not see eye to eye with him (Benbrika)," recalls the imam of the Preston mosque, Sheik Fehmi. "He took a hardline opinion on religion."

Sheik Fouad an-Nachar from Preston mosque says that shortly after Abu Qatada's visit, Benbrika provoked a row with the moderates and stormed out, taking with him a group of hardliners.

Yasser Soliman, former president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, recalls that Benbrika also stopped attending the council's moderate prayer sessions.

Instead, Benbrika rented a house near the Preston mosque where he and a group of fellow Algerians held their prayers.

By this stage, Benbrika's religious teachings were too radical

even for many in Melbourne's tight-knit fundamentalist community.

By the late 1990s, Benbrika was hungry for students and like-minded religious thinkers. As an Arabic speaker living on the dole, he associated almost exclusively with fellow hardline Muslims and was largely cut-off from mainstream Australian society.

This, coupled with the fact that he was learning his Islam exclusively from books - with no guidance from Islamic scholars to put his learning in perspective - only increased the fervour of his beliefs and his alienation from society.

But Benbrika found a soulmate in Qatada's childhood friend, the Jordanian cleric Sheik Omran, who had set up the Ahlus Sunnah Wal-Jamaah Association, a prayer group in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth dedicated to a pure, conservative interpretation of Islam.

At this stage, another split was developing in Melbourne's Islamic community, this time between the fundamentalists over links with Saudi Arabia, a nation that had helped fund schools and mosques in Australia but which also wanted to spread its pure Wahabi version of Islam. Omran and Benbrika supported the teaching of pure Islam but despised the Saudi Government, its alliance with the US and its complicity with the West in the first Gulf War.

In 2000, they and Omran's supporters took over the now infamous prayer hall in Brunswick. This hall, known as the Islamic Information and Support Centre of Australia, was to become the prayer centre of choice for most of the nine men arrested in Melbourne this week on terror-related charges.

Benbrika became the second-most senior Islamic teacher at IISCA.

"He was close to me for a short period of time when I came to Melbourne," Omran said this week, but he admitted that he and Benbrika eventually fell out.

"Anyone doesn't like your way of working, he goes in his own way, so this is how it is," Omran said.

It says much about Benbrika that he viewed as too moderate Sheik Omran, a radical cleric who is close to Qatada, to Indonesia's spiritual leader of JI, Abu Bakar Bashir, and many other clerics accused of promoting global terrorism. After the September 11 terror attacks, Benbrika was also said to be uncomfortable about Omran's dealings with ASIO, which was anxious to obtain information about the activities of IISCA.

Benbrika left IISCA in a huff, taking with him the "radical-of-the-radical" - those who also saw Omran as too soft.

For the most part, these were not family-friendly Muslims seeking only a higher form of spiritual achievement.

Most of Benbrika's followers were young hotheads and small-time criminals from Melbourne's poor northern and western suburbs.

These were hardened street boys armed with attitude and the Koran, who saw in Benbrika a father figure and a way to reclaim their lost souls. His group was small but tight-knit and recently spread its tentacles into Sydney where Benbrika's radical name preceded him and gained him more followers.

Omran, the nation's most senior hardline fundamentalist leader, soon found himself under attack, ironically, for not defending his Muslim brothers accused of terrorism.

Omran weathered a storm of criticism last year from Benbrika's followers after he criticised former terror suspect Mamdouh Habib as a deeply disturbed man who dressed in Japanese ninja warrior outfits.

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