Would-be terrorist lived the high life

Mike Hedge
The Australian
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

A WOULD-BE terrorist who conversed with birds also lived in a luxury three-storey beachfront home, drove a BMW, had a carer and a butler, regularly called telephone sex lines and masqueraded as a high-rolling gambler, a Melbourne court heard today.

Izzydeen Atik, 28, also claimed to be a "good Muslim" who wanted to join a Melbourne terrorist organisation which, he said, had plans to bomb the MCG on AFL grand final day.

A Victorian Supreme Court jury heard Atik hadn't done a day's work in six years when he moved into a beachfront villa at Williamstown in Melbourne's south-west in 2005, funding his lifestyle through credit card fraud.

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He told the court he occupied the palatial home by himself, except for his brother, who fraudulently collected a carer's pension from Centrelink in return for looking after him, and the butler who ultimately replaced the brother.

Atik is a key prosecution witness in the trial of 12 men who have pleaded not guilty in Australia's largest-ever terror trial.

Having told the court yesterday of the group's intended targets, including the MCG and Crown Casino, Atik repeatedly claimed memory loss today when cross-examined about psychological treatment he had received over several years in Sydney.

Defence counsel Remy Van de Wiel, QC, told the court Atik had a history of hearing voices in his head and had claimed to communicate with birds.

Full article here.

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