Aussie Court Convicts Architect of Planning Terror Act

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June 19, 2006 1:03 PM

A Sydney architect has been convicted of planning to blow up Australia's national electricity grid or a defense site in that nation's first conviction for planning a terrorist act.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Faheem Khalid Lodhi, 36, had gathered maps, chemicals and recipes for poisons and homemade bombs to carry out his plan before he was arrested.

The evidence against him included a "terror manual," a 15-page, handwritten document in Lodhi's native Urdu language with numerous recipes for explosives and poisons that he had obtained from the internet.

The guilty verdict on three terror-related charges was reached after a seven-week trial. One charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. The other two carry maximums of 15 years each.

The charges were that he collected maps of the Australian electricity supply system in preparation of a terrorist act (15 years), that he sought information on chemical prices for the use of explosives for a terrorist act (life) and that he possessed a document with information on the manufacture of poisons and bombs in preparation of a terrorist act (15 years).