Teen charged over Anzac Day terror plot weapons

A NARRE WARREN teenager has been charged with importing weapons planned for use in a foiled terror plot allegedly targeting Anzac Day services in Melbourne’s south-east.
Mehran Azami, 19, previously charged with four counts of possessing a prohibited weapon, was charged on Thursday with an extra 19 counts of importing prohibited weapons from a Chinese dealer including 27 tactical knives, 14 tasers disguised as mobile phones, and extendable batons.
Azami is believed to be the weapons supplier for two other Casey teenagers arrested in relation to the plot – 18-year-olds Harun Causevic and Sevdet Ramadan Besim.
Azami appeared in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Thursday 30 April and was remanded in custody to return in July.
Causevic and Ramadan chose not to proceed with their bail applications on Thursday and have also remained in custody.
They are due to return to court for a committal mention in August.
Police swooped on the 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.
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 teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London last Friday and was denied bail.
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.