A Melbourne, Australia, Islamic community center leader on Sunday waved away “false” accusations allegedly linking the center with the co-pilot behind the September 30 attempted hijacking of Flydubai Flight FZ1073.
As Breitbart News reported last week, the Attorney-General of the United Arab Emirates Hamad Saif Al Shamsi announced that investigators uncovered a premeditated terrorist plot intending to crash Flydubai Flight FZ1073 and kill as many people as possible.
On September 30, one of the plane’s co-pilots, 29 year-old Omani national Hamam al-Hammami, stabbed the other in an attempted hijacking. The plane, and its over 170 Israeli passengers, was flying from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Tel Aviv, Israel, at the time of the incident.
Al Shamsi detailed in a statement the suspect intended to “seize control of the aircraft” and use it to carry out a “suicide attack targeting the passenger terminal at Ben Gurion Airport,” with the aim of causing “the greatest possible loss of life.”
The UEA Attorney-General detailed that investigators traced the beginnings of Hammami’s radicalization process to 2017, when he was studying at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia. The radicalization led to him becoming increasingly immersed and interested in pro-terrorism and suicide attack material.
It is reportedly believed that al-Hammami regularly attended a mosque in Melbourne and became acquainted with members of an Islamic organization known as “My Centre,” lead by Abu Hamza — a Lebanese national who also goes by the name of Samir Mohtadi
Neither “My Centre” nor Abu Hamza are accused of any criminal wrongdoing.
On Sunday, the Lebanon-born Hamza published a four-minute video on Facebook dismissing what he described as “false accusations” without directly commenting on the claims issued by UAE prosecutors.
He accompanied the video with a caption that reads, “Asalam Alaykum, The righteous will always be attacked.”
“Right through the ages, there’s something common. You’ll find those who are righteous, they’ve always been attacked, abused, accused, killed, imprisoned, and this is the way it is,” Hamza says in the video.
Hamza affirmed that he will abstain from commenting on the matter because there are “circumstances, my beloved brothers and respected sisters, regardless how much you explain yourself to people, they’re fixated with their ideas and that’s it. You can’t change them.”
“So the best thing sometimes is not to say anything,” he said.
Per Australia’s ABC News, Rateb Jneid, president of the Sydney-based Australian Federation of Islamic Councils said in a Sunday statement the federation “stood firmly” with My Centre and its leadership.
“Community organizations that have spent years supporting young people and families should not have their reputations damaged through speculation or guilt by association,” the statement reportedly read.
It is reportedly understood that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team are presently investigating “any links” between al-Hammami and Australia.
The RMIT confirmed to local and international outlets that al-Hammami studied engineering but did not successfully complete his degree.
