Australian charged with importing weapons for failed terror plan

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Australian charged with importing weapons for failed terror plan

AFP
April 30, 2015, 8:04 pm

Sydney (AFP) - An Australian teenager arrested in recent counter-terrorism raids faced fresh charges Thursday for allegedly importing weapons to supply two others accused of planning an Islamic State-inspired attack on Anzac Day commemorations.

Mehran Azami, 19, who was already facing weapons offences after being arrested with four others during the raids on April 18, was refused bail at a hearing in Melbourne Magistrates' Court.

He was Thursday charged with importing illegal goods including knives, knuckle dusters and Tasers.

Police told the court Azami allegedly passed some of the weapons to two other 18-year-olds arrested in the raids -- Sevdet Besim and Harun Causevic, Melbourne's The Age reported.

Besim and Causevic face terrorism-related charges and remain in custody. Besim Thursday withdrew his bail application while Causevic was due to apply for bail Tuesday.

Azami's lawyer Charles Atlas told the court the young man needed mental health treatment.

"This isn't a very sophisticated crime. We don't have an Al Capone or Osama bin Laden here," Atlas told the court, the Herald Sun newspaper reported.

"This man is not a risk to the public and the police know it."

Two other men, aged 18 and 19, were released after the raids pending further inquiries.

A 14-year-old boy from Blackburn in northwest England was last week charged in Britain for inciting the teenagers' alleged plot to carry out a beheading and attack an Anzac Day parade.

Australian authorities stepped up security around the April 25 commemorations honouring the nation's war dead after the arrests and charges.

Canberra raised its threat level to "high" last September and has since carried out a series of counter-terrorism raids, with alarm fuelled by the departure of more than 100 of its nationals to Iraq and Syria to fight with jihadists.