Faheem Khalid Lodhi Update. Apparently when he said “jihad is the best thing that man can ever volunteer to do,” he of course meant a peaceful inner struggle, which is why he attained such a height of holiness that he used a false name to buy a map of Australia’s electricity grid.
We have seen this, of course, many times before. In fact, I don’t think any accused jihadist has ever been anything but a peaceful person railroaded by racist authorities.
“Terror suspect a ‘peaceful person,'” from The Australian, with thanks to JE:
AUSTRALIAN politicians have been accused by a lawyer defending a suspected terrorist of playing on people’s fears and emotions about terrorism for political gain.
But Phillip Boulten, SC, said Sydney architect Faheem Khalid Lodhi was a “peaceful person” entitled to the presumption of innocence.
Pakistan-born Lodhi, 36, has pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court of New South Wales to four terrorism-related offences. He was accused of plotting a terrorist attack in an effort to wage “violent jihad” in Australia.
Crown Prosecutor Richard Maidment, SC, alleges that in October 2003 Lodhi bought two maps of the national electricity supply system and inquired about buying chemicals capable of making explosives, in preparation for a terrorist attack….
Politicians were “doing quite nicely in this country by playing on people’s fears and emotions about terrorism,” Mr Boulten told the jury….
He described his client as a “peaceful person” who although upset by the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, took the approach that “blowing up things here (in Australia) wouldn’t settle anything”.
“There’s no history of this man being a violent person,” Mr Boulten said.
“He’s not part of a group that believes in violence as a means to an end.”…
He isn’t?
In his closing submissions today, Mr Maidment told the jury Lodhi had tried to get out of the trouble he was in by lying.
Mr Maidment said many accused people in criminal cases “tried to bluster their way out of trouble by telling a pack of lies”.
Gee, ya think?