By LACHLAN MOORHEAD and CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
Security on high alert as terror clampdown marks historic Anzac commemorations…
POLICE were armed at Anzac Day services throughout Casey on Saturday as thousands of people came to honour the fallen, undaunted by an alleged terrorist plot targeting services in Melbourne’s south-east.
Only a week after details of the alleged terrorist attack surfaced, the Casey community gathered throughout Berwick, Narre Warren, Cranbourne, Pearcedale, and Tooradin to commemorate the special centenary of the Gallipoli landing.
Twenty-four hours before Anzac Day, British police charged a 14-year-old UK boy with trying to incite beheadings and attacks on Australian Anzac Day commemoration services.
The charges came after officers swooped on five Casey teenagers in morning raids on Saturday 18 April following a tip-off from British police.
A 200-strong joint state and federal police counter-terrorism team executed seven search warrants in Narre Warren, Hampton Park, Hallam and Eumemmerring as part of Operation Rising.
As a result Harun Causevic of Hampton Park and Sevdet Ramdan Besim of Hallam were charged with conspiracy to commit acts done in preparation for, or planning, terrorist acts.
A Narre Warren man, 18, is facing prohibited weapons charges. He was released on bail.
Two other Narre Warren men, aged 18 and 19, were released without charge.
Reports have linked the three charged teenagers with Springvale’s Al-Furqan Islamic Centre in Springvale South, the same centre attended by Numan Haider who stabbed police and was shot dead outside Endeavour Hills Police Station last year.
On Wednesday Al-Furquan announced it was permanently closing its doors.
In the UK prosecutors said the British teenager had incited someone “to carry out an attack at an Anzac parade in Australia with the aim of killing and/or causing serious injury to people“.
“The second allegation is that on 18 March 2015, the defendant incited another person to behead someone in Australia,“ Deborah Walsh, deputy head of counter terrorism at the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service, said in a statement.
Dandenong police Inspector Bruce Kitchen said extra police – both covert and overt – were part of a ramped-up presence at the dawn service and mid-morning march in Dandenong.
“In years gone by, police haven’t been armed at Anzac Day services,” Insp Kitchen said.
“But we will have all police in uniform with full operational safety equipment on, including arms.”
Following the raids on Saturday, Harun Causevic of Hampton Park and Sevdet Ramdan Besim of Hallam were charged with the federal offence of conspiracy to commit acts done in preparation for, or planning, terrorist acts.
Besim appeared briefly at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday 24 April and was further remanded.
He is expected to apply for bail next week.
Causevic, who will appear in court on 30 April, was held by police without charge for three days under a preventative detention order at Barwon Prison.
It was the first time such an order had been exercised in Victoria.
Causevic’s lawyer Rob Stary told Channel 9 that it was inappropriate for his client, who had no criminal history, to be in a maximum security prison.
“He should be treated in same way as any other remand prisoner.
“He should be housed in an appropriate remand facility, not in the state’s maximum security unit,” Mr Stary said.
Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed last Tuesday that it would be alleged that multiple Anzac Day services were potentially being targeted and that “edged weapons” were involved.
“That related to a specific threat to police members and by extension other members of the general public,” he said.
Islamic centre closes its doors, page 9.
