An ISIS militant believed to be behind an unsuccessful attempt to bomb an Etihad flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi last year has been sentenced to death in Iraq, according to a report by Australia's ABC news service.
Tarek Khayat, 48, a Lebanese national, was sentenced this week by the Alrasafah Central Criminal Court in Baghdad over his role as ISIS commander in Iraq, ABC said.
Khayat is believed to have directed two of his brothers — Khaled and Mahmoud — to bring down an Etihad Airways flight on July 15, 2017, using an explosive device hidden in a meat grinder.
Their plan was foiled when a fourth brother, Amer, was prevented from carrying the device on board as cabin baggage because his bag was too heavy. He boarded the flight without the bag and is now in custody in Lebanon. He denies any knowledge of the plot.
Khaled and Mahmoud were arrested by the Australian police in a series of raids across Sydney in July 2017 and are expected to go on trial at the New South Wales supreme court next year, according to ABC.
Khayat, who was wanted by Lebanese authorities for attempting to establish an ISIS affiliate in the country’s north in 2014 before he moved to Syria to join the extremist group, has 10 days to appeal his sentence and could be executed within 30 days after that if the appeal is rejected.
He was arrested in Iraq earlier this year alongside a relative with Australian citizenship named Ahmed Mehri, senior Australian officials told ABC.
Authorities believe both Khayat and Mehri had been in touch with ISIS supporters in Australia and had played a role in several domestic plots.
There was no word on Mehri's fate.
Iraq has arrested tens of thousands of suspected ISIS members and sympathisers on terrorism charges and is reported to have sentenced more than 3,000 to death since the government declared victory over the group in December last year after a three-year campaign backed by a US-led global coalition.
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Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
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- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
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More from Janine di Giovanni
Try out the test yourself
Q1 Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2 per cent per year. After five years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow?
a) More than $102
b) Exactly $102
c) Less than $102
d) Do not know
e) Refuse to answer
Q2 Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1 per cent per year and inflation was 2 per cent per year. After one year, how much would you be able to buy with the money in this account?
a) More than today
b) Exactly the same as today
c) Less than today
d) Do not know
e) Refuse to answer
Q4 Do you think that the following statement is true or false? “Buying a single company stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.”
a) True
b) False
d) Do not know
e) Refuse to answer
The “Big Three” financial literacy questions were created by Professors Annamaria Lusardi of the George Washington School of Business and Olivia Mitchell, of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Answers: Q1 More than $102 (compound interest). Q2 Less than today (inflation). Q3 False (diversification).
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