Jury retires in terror trial
Updated
After more than six months, Australia's largest terrorism trial is almost over, with the jury now considering it's verdict.
The jurors were sent out late yesterday after listening to the Judge's summary, which itself took one week. All from Melbourne, the twelve men are each charged with knowingly being members of a terrorist organisation which was planning a terrorist attack on Australian soil .
Presenter: Alison Caldwell
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ALISON CALDWELL: Apart from being Australia's longest terrorism trial, it was also one of Victoria's longest and most complex trials, involving 12 accused, 30 barristers and one of the state's most senior judges, the former DPP Justice Bernard Bongiorno.
From nine to five each day, including Saturday, the jurors will sit in a small, windowless room and consider what is effectively 27 separate trials.
The bulk of the evidence in the trial was more than 480 conversations involving the accused, secretly bugged and taped by police over an 18-month period.
Charged with being the organisation's director is self styled sheikh Abdul Nacer Benbrika. The prosecution alleges he was the group's spiritual leader. Many of the bugged conversations took place inside his house where police had planted a hidden listening device.
In one conversation recorded in February 2005, Abdul Nacer Benbrika speaks with an associate. Here an actor reads from a transcript of the conversation.
ABDUL NACER BENBRIKA (read by actor): Especially now, the best thing is to be a Mujaheddin; prepared, as everyone has to prepare himself, or to die or to be jailed. Allah knows best.
I don't want this kind of life, give that to them. We have to be careful, if we want to die for jihad, we do maximum damage, maximum damage - damage their buildings with everything and damage their lives, just to show them. That's what we are waiting for. You be careful, trust no one.
ALISON CALDWELL: Other listening devices were hidden in cars and inside a garage while all of their mobile phones were tapped.
The prosecution claims some of the accused shared a common library of violent material, including bomb making handbooks and DVDs of beheadings.
Defence lawyers argued the men were not an organisation but a loosely connected group of men seeking spiritual guidance. Four of the 12 are related - three of the men are brothers while their cousin is another one of the accused.
Defence lawyers argued the case against the accused was based on throw-away comments made by young men who were keenly aware of the community's prejudice against Muslims.
The men were all arrested after police raids in November 2005.
