Accused's Recipes Stir Up Court
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday May 2, 2006
TAKE some cornflour, beef and animal dung and bury it in a pot underground in "some hot and dark place" for 10 days. It will apparently become a poison.
Or, to make invisible ink, "write with woman or cow's milk" or "mix a drop of blood into two-jug-full water".These instructions were part of several recipes for poison, homemade bombs and grenades found in a 15-page "terrorism manual" handwritten by Faheem Khalid Lodhi in his native Urdu and translated into English, a court has been told.The document, which ASIO officers allegedly found at Lodhi's desk at a Sydney architect firm, makes for intriguing reading, but has been described as a "Boy's Own spy kit" by the defence during his trial.The manual, which was tendered to the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, includes ingredients such as urea nitrate and nitrocellulose, which the prosecution alleges can be used for powerful homemade explosives.It also contains ingredients and different methods for making a petrol bomb, cyanide gas, sulfuric acid, lead azide, mercury fulminate, potassium chlorate, and a "time pencil" made from sugar and potassium permanganate.It includes a glossary of terms, including safe house, live drop, dead drop, counter intelligenceand sabotage.Lodhi has pleaded not guilty to four terrorism-related charges, namely that he was planning in October, 2003 to blow up one or more Sydney military defence sites or the national electricity grid.Yesterday Rose Bakla, an employee of the Electricity Supply Association of Australia, told the court that a man by the name of M. Rasul, whom the prosecution alleges was Lodhi, bought two maps of the grid on October 3. It is also alleged that Lodhi requested a price list for 10 chemicals from Deltrex Chemicals to be faxed to his workplace, at Thomson Adsett Architects, on October 10.He said it was for a detergent company he was planning called Eagle Flyers. The trial continues.
© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald