Wednesday, December 14, 2005

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Australian 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.They are to reappear in the Sydney court again on December 5.Earlier, Australia's senior police chief said Monday he supported a plan to create a regional counterterror task force to track extremists throughout Southeast Asia.Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty will give a keynote address at a summit of Southeast Asian police chiefs in Jakarta this week.Indonesian counterterrorism authorities will seek agreement from neighboring countries to establish a regional task force, The Australian newspaper reported."It's up to the Indonesians and the other ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) police chiefs as to what initiatives they want to bring forward and what they finally agree to," Keelty told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio from Thailand."But we would support a team being put together to look at, particularly, the areas where there's cross-border movement of people who are suspected terrorists, who have been under investigation by our joint teams in Indonesia and our joint teams in the Philippines," he said."Something like a joint effort or a collaborative effort would be a good outcome," he added.Keelty said such a project would build on existing arrangements, such as the Jakarta Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation, which already involves Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines.Australia committed A$38 million ($27.7 million) to the center last year and has provided 20 police and government lawyers to staff it."Clearly, what we want to do is look at two things: Are we providing the proper response today for the problems we face today, and what are the problems of the future and how do we best respond to those?" Keelty said."And what's the capacity of the police to do that and are the police the only agency that needs to be involved in this?" he added.Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock said Sunday that Australia wanted to build stronger counterterror links within the region."We've had an operation funded in Indonesia dealing with policing and obviously it's important to us to have the best available intelligence arrangements within the region and to improve the capacity and to ensure that the laws a seamless," Ruddock told Nine Network television.Ruddock was due to meet his U.S. counterpart, Alberto R. Gonzales, later Monday in Sydney.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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