The legal team defending accused terrorist leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika is running a fascinating defence.
Mr Van de Wiel described the attacks [September 11] as “evil and shocking”.”But don’t forget, America has done many evil things too,” Mr van de Wiel told the court.
He also told the Victorian Supreme Court jury to be cautious about forming the opinion that Osama bin Laden, who it has heard was a hero to the leader of the Melbourne group, was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
“To say this was all orchestrated by Osama bin Laden is also very silly,” he said.
“He has never claimed responsibility.”
Well, that’s not entirely true but, in all likelihood, Mr Van de Wiel was simply acting under the instructions of his client when he brought this stuff up in court.
The other curious argument being deployed is that the accused is just not really up to the task of being a terrorist:
“You may have been of the view that Mr Benbrika can’t lead ants to sugar, can’t organise a booze-up in a brewery . . . let alone run a terrorist organisation,” he said.
The entire case is proving to be quite interesting. The recorded conversations between the alleged terrorists have so far covered such things as shooting a prominent Melbourne Muslim leader who had warned them against carrying out an attack; kidnapping another Muslim suspected of being an “informer”, tying him to a tree and extracting the “truth” from him; meeting a sheikh at his car with batons; and appearing to threaten a journalist.
For example, ABC Radio’s PM program last week played a reenactment [mp3] (complete with accents) of a taped conversation between two of the accused terrorists in which they discuss killing “little kids”, blowing up a train station, killing the then Prime Minister and killing the Prime Minister’s family. The defence doesn’t dispute the conversation but argued that it was merely the “talk” of a young Muslim man trying to find his place in the world (whatever that means).
10 comments ↓
Are these guys for real? This just shows how the ignorant can easily be manipulated by extremist demagogues, especially among second or third generation youth (look at how Omar Bakri was able to beguile so many Asian-British kids).
It’s interesting that almost all these guys come from the same village in Lebanon too.
Sorry australobe, im not defending Benrika or his crew but i would like to add one thing to the above….
Bin laden has always denied any role in 9/11. no matter how many fake bin laden videos keep popping up and admitting to 9/11, the evidence points to somthing more sinister than 19 arabs armed with box cutters… one of whose passports survived the entire expolosion and subsequent demolishen of the towers and one who wrote an incrimitating will, which was then left in his luggage which mysterioulsy never made the flight…
im sure there is more to the story and hope one day the truth does come out
No muslim_perth, he has clearly took responsibility for ihs attack on numerous tapes sent to al-Jazeera. Are you going to criticize al-Jazeera for airing ‘fake tapes’ then, by that logic?
And don’t forget, there are some Muslims who were clearly happy with what happened on 9/11 and refer to bin laden as a hero.
But of course, that’s limited to confused rejects residing in the West than in Muslim countries.
Don’t forget that bin laden himself praised the “operation” countless times, but you seem oblivious to it due to the fact that you think all Muslims are somehow perfect.
My dear friend danial,
i have yet to see any credible evidence that OBL was behind 9/11, do not belive everything that the US govt wants you to accept as facts… Al-jazeera are not and do not claim to be a muslim channel in any sense…. and nor is Aljazeera free from error…
do a little research and you will clearly see that OBL has never claimed responisbility for 9/11, it is for this reason that on the FBI most wanted list (see webpae also) he is not wanted for 9/11 but for other alleged terrorist acts………
muslims are not perfect, i have never claimed this… some muslims may well have been happy after 9/11, as im sure many other peoples would have happy too, like the aryan brotherhood, latin leftist guerillas etc,, actually anyone who has ever been a victim to american terrorism would have had some sense of satisfaction after america got hit, once again this is not a muslim issue, Almost all islamic scholars and muslim countries leaders condemed this attack which targetted civilians……
regards
Muslim_Perth
I think at this point those who still claim that bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11 are either grossly ignorant or willfully denying reality. In a video tape released in 2004 Osama bin Laden released a video tape in which he acknowledged involvement in 9/11:
It seems pretty obvious to me that he is confessing his involvement with 9/11 there.
sorry brother, it is proven as fake:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape2.html
“Proven”? I’m sorry, but a site that makes a business out of pushing various conspiracy theories is not proof of anything.
i think that the only conspiracy theory here is the one that argues that 19 arab men armed only with boxcutters were able to bring down those towers by controlling planes that and doing flight manovers that even experienced pilots could not even pull off……..
however, to you be your opinion and to me be mine inshallah
peace
I agree with Abu Omar, but placing 9/11 aside, no one is going to say that Bin Ladin does not support and has not called for the massacre of civilians.
And anyone who “derived satisfaction” from the 9/11 massacre of civilians seriously has something wrong with them and should be seeing a therapist.
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