Terror suspects arrested near Sydney nucl. reactor
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Police stopped and questioned three recently arrested Sydney terror suspects near Australia's only nuclear reactor in December last year, according to a police document submitted to a court.
The police fact sheet for eight Sydney terror suspects who faced a Sydney magistrate last week was released to the media Monday.
They were among 18 terror suspects arrested in Sydney and Melbourne last week and charged with planning a terrorist attack. Police have not identified the likely target.
The document alleges that Mazen Touma, Mohammed Elomar and Abdul Rakib Hasan were stopped in their car by New South Wales state police near the nuclear facility at Lucas Heights, in southern Sydney, in December 2004.
The men also had a trail bike and claimed they were there to ride it, the document said.
But according to the fact sheet, when interviewed separately, all three gave different versions of the day's events to police.
"Police inquiries revealed the access lock for a gate to a reservoir of the reactor had recently been cut," the sheet said.
Touma, Elomar and Hasan, along with five other Sydney men, have been charged with conspiring to manufacture explosives in preparation for a terrorist act.