A Pakistan-born architect convicted of plotting a "jihad" or holy war bombing campaign in Australia had his appeal dismissed in a Sydney court Thursday. Faheem Khalid Lodhi was sentenced to 20 years jail in August 2006 after a jury found him guilty of planning to blow up the electrical grid in Australia's biggest city.
Lodhi, who immigrated in the mid-1990s and holds Australian citizenship, was convicted of preparing for a terrorist act by seeking information about chemicals capable of making explosives. He was also found guilty of possessing a "terrorism manual" and of buying two maps of the Sydney electricity grid in preparation for a terrorist act.Lodhi denied the charges.
Prosecutors linked Lodhi to Frenchman Willie Brigitte, who was deported from Australia in late 2003 and subsequently convicted in France of plotting a major attack in Sydney. Lodhi was one of the first defendants to be convicted under tough laws passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
His lawyers appealed on a number of grounds, arguing that the laws usurped the judiciary's role and denied him a fair trial, and that the link with Brigitte was overstated in the original court case.
The full bench of the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed all the appeal grounds and upheld Lodhi's sentence in a 40,000-word judgement published Thursday on the court's website. "I agree that the appeal should be dismissed," chief judge Jim Spigelman said.
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