Brothers sentenced to 40, 36 years
AN explosive device to be used in a terror plot by brothers Khaled and Mahmoud Khayat, was sent to them from overseas to an address of a relative in Wiley Park in April 2017.
They then planned to hide the bomb in the meat grinder rigged with explosives in the luggage of another brother, Amer Khayat, from Lakemba, without his knowledge.
Amer was set to board an Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi in July 2017 but his brothers abandoned their plan at the last minute at Sydney airport when the bag was found to be overweight.
The pair also then began preparations for a separate attack using a poisonous gas.
Their older brother, Tarek Khayat, who allegedly fought for Islamic State in Syria and was also involved in the plot to blow up the plane, is in prison in Lebanon.
Last Tuesday, December 17, NSW Supreme Court Justice Christine Adamson jailed Khaled for 40 years and Mahmoud for 36 years, with non-parole periods of 30 and 27 years respectively.
She said neither man had “has acknowledged guilt … much less shown any contrition or remorse”.‚Ä®”That no one actually suffered physical injury or was killed as a result of this conspiracy does not make it other than extremely serious,” she said.
“If the plots had gone according to plan, no one in the aircraft carrying the bomb and no one exposed to the poisonous gas would have survived and no one would have had time to say goodbye.
“There are no grounds to suppose that, had they not been arrested, they would not have gone ahead with the poisonous gas plot or that they would not have found another way of getting the bomb onto an aircraft.”
After spending more than two and a half years in a Lebanese prison, Amer was acquitted of the bomb plot by a military court in September and returned to Australia.
TWO brothers have been handed long jail sentences after being convicted for their part in a plan to bring down a passenger plane with a bomb hidden in a meat grinder.
Earlier this year Khaled Khayat, 52, from Lakemba and Mahmoud Khayat, 34, from Punchbowl, were each found guilty in separate trials of conspiring to prepare or plan a terrorist act.
