MELBOURNE: A Daesh sympathizer planned to buy a gun and kill as many revellers as possible on New Year’s Eve in Melbourne, police alleged Tuesday after foiling the plot.
Ali Ali, born in Australia to Somali parents, was arrested in a raid on a house in the Melbourne suburb of Werribee on Monday.
He appeared in court Tuesday charged with preparing to commit a terrorist attack and collecting documents to facilitate a terror attack. No bail was applied for.
Police claim the 20-year-old accessed a guide book online produced by Al-Qaeda on how to carry out terror acts and use firearms, but was arrested before he could purchase an automatic rifle.
“What we will be alleging is that he was intending to use a firearm to shoot and kill as many people as he could in the Federation Square area on New Year’s Eve,” said Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton.
“It is a tremendous concern to us that (during) the festive season, when people are out enjoying themselves, that there is a potential plot to commit a terrorist act. That is a huge issue for us but that is why we put the resources in.”
Federation Square is in the heart of the city, opposite a busy train station and St. Paul’s Cathedral. It is one of the most popular places to see-in the new year and would be packed on December 31.
The alleged plot comes a year after police prevented what they said was another attack in the same area on Christmas Day, arresting several men who planned to use explosives, knives and guns to target the location.
Patton said Ali, who lives with his parents, had been on their radar since the beginning of the year, part of a small community of extremists that police have been monitoring.
His behavior had gradually escalated over time, but police believe he was acting alone.
A person who knows Ali told the Melbourne Herald Sun: “He is a very quiet guy. This is an absolute shock.”
Justice Minister Michael Keenan said the fact that the Christmas — New Year period was again a target “reminds us of the depravity of terrorists.”
“They seek to strike fear in the community when Australians are enjoying time over the Christmas period with their families and friends,” he said, adding that there would be high-profile policing over the holiday period.
Australian officials have grown increasingly concerned over the threat of extremist attacks, raising the national terror alert level to “probable” in September 2014.
Since then, 74 people have been arrested in 347 counter-terror investigations.
Authorities say 14 attacks have now been prevented in the past few years, including a Daesh-directed attempt to bring down a plane using poisonous gas or a crude bomb disguised as a meat mincer.
Despite this, several attacks have taken place, including a cafe siege in Sydney in 2014 where two hostages were killed.
Police foil Australia New Year’s Eve ‘terror plot’
Police foil Australia New Year’s Eve ‘terror plot’
Trump sues the BBC for defamation over editing of January 6 speech, seeks up to $10 billion in damages
- A BBC spokesperson told Reuters earlier on Monday that it had “no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point
- The BBC is funded through a mandatory license fee on all TV viewers, which UK lawyers say could make any payout to Trump politically fraught
WASHING: President Donald Trump sued the BBC on Monday for defamation over edited clips of a speech that made it appear he directed supporters to storm the US Capitol, opening an international front in his fight against media coverage he deems untrue or unfair. Trump accused Britain’s publicly owned broadcaster of defaming him by splicing together parts of a January 6, 2021 speech, including one section where he told supporters to march on the Capitol and another where he said “fight like hell.” It omitted a section in which he called for peaceful protest.
Trump’s lawsuit alleges the BBC defamed him and violated a Florida law that bars deceptive and unfair trade practices. He is seeking $5 billion in damages for each of the lawsuit’s two counts. The BBC has apologized to Trump, admitted an error of judgment and acknowledged that the edit gave the mistaken impression that he had made a direct call for violent action. But it has said there is no legal basis to sue.
Trump, in his lawsuit filed Monday in Miami federal court, said the BBC despite its apology “has made no showing of actual remorse for its wrongdoing nor meaningful institutional changes to prevent future journalistic abuses.”
The BBC is funded through a mandatory license fee on all TV viewers, which UK lawyers say could make any payout to Trump politically fraught.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said in a statement the BBC “has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda.”
A BBC spokesperson told Reuters earlier on Monday that it had “no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point. Our position remains the same.” The broadcaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the lawsuit was filed.
CRISIS LED TO RESIGNATIONS
Facing one of the biggest crises in its 103-year history, the BBC has said it has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary on any of its platforms.
The dispute over the clip, featured on the BBC’s “Panorama” documentary show shortly before the 2024 presidential election, sparked a public relations crisis for the broadcaster, leading to the resignations of its two most senior officials.
Trump’s lawyers say the BBC caused him overwhelming reputational and financial harm.
The documentary drew scrutiny after the leak of a BBC memo by an external standards adviser that raised concerns about how it was edited, part of a wider investigation of political bias at the publicly funded broadcaster.
The documentary was not broadcast in the United States.
Trump may have sued in the US because defamation claims in Britain must be brought within a year of publication, a window that has closed for the “Panorama” episode.
To overcome the US Constitution’s legal protections for free speech and the press, Trump will need to prove not only that the edit was false and defamatory but also that the BBC knowingly misled viewers or acted recklessly.
The broadcaster could argue that the documentary was substantially true and its editing decisions did not create a false impression, legal experts said. It could also claim the program did not damage Trump’s reputation.
Other media have settled with Trump, including CBS and ABC when Trump sued them following his comeback win in the November 2024 election.
Trump has filed lawsuits against the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and a newspaper in Iowa, all three of which have denied wrongdoing. The attack on the US Capitol in January 2021 was aimed at blocking Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win over Trump in the 2020 US election.
