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Sydney man guilty of plane bomb plot

Mahmoud and Khaled Khayet in court this week.

Mahmoud and Khaled Khayet in court this week. Photo: ABC

One of two brothers charged with conspiring to plan a terror attack by planting a bomb on an international flight from Sydney has been found guilty.

Khaled and Mahmoud Khayat were charged in July 2017 with plotting to bring down an Etihad Airways plane using a device hidden in a meat grinder.

After more than two days of deliberations, a jury found Khaled Khayat guilty but have so-far been unable to reach a verdict in his brother Mahmoud Khayat’s trial.

Justice Christine Adamson has sent the jury back out to continue its deliberations.

Khaled Khayat’s supporters gasped when the jury’s verdict was read out in the Parramatta Supreme Court, while he listened intently from the dock.

The plan involved detonating the bomb on a flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi, but it was aborted when the bag with the bomb inside was too heavy to be checked in on the flight.

Police described the bomb as a “high-end military-grade explosive”.

Part of the bomb from the meat mincer was found by police two weeks later in Khaled Khayat’s garage.

Earlier in the trial, the court heard Khaled Khayat was motivated to support militant groups fighting the Syrian regime and to promote Islamic State.

After Khaled Khayat was arrested, police claimed that sometime between April 13, 2017 and mid-July that same year, an IS operative in Turkey sent a “high-end military grade explosive” to Australia, which Khaled Khayat or his brother used to create the bomb.

Police alleged that by July 15, the bomb was built and on its way to Kingsford Smith Airport, bound for the Etihad passenger flight.

Khaled Khayat will be sentenced on July 26.

The charge he has been found guilty of carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

-ABC

 

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