Refugee hits back at terror claims

By SCOTT INGLIS

A man implicated in a possible plot to target the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney insists he is not a terrorist but a law-abiding Afghan refugee.

Mohammad Omar Ahmadzai, who lives in Auckland, told the Herald yesterday that he was a peaceful man and angrily rejected suggestions that he is involved in terrorism.

The Weekend Herald revealed that New Zealand detectives had foiled a possible attack on the Lucas Heights reactor while investigating an alleged people-smuggling operation.

Despite attempts by New Zealand politicians and TVNZ's Holmes to pour cold water on the story, police have confirmed all the key details.

The police national crimes manager, Detective Superintendent Bill Bishop, told the Sydney Morning Herald that police were concerned but the risk had been neutralised.

The group had a map of Sydney with the nuclear reactor and its entry and exit points highlighted.

"It had the potential to be used for anything but we became concerned when we found out it was not related to their people smuggling operation."

Because of the proximity to the Olympics there was sufficient cause for concern, Mr Bishop said.

"What we are saying is we do not believe there is now a threat to Sydney or to the Olympics but at the time there could have been. If they were planning to do anything, we have foiled it."

Sources told the Herald police uncovered what appeared to be a clandestine cell of about 20 mainly Afghan refugees in Auckland who maintained links with suspected terrorists in their strife-torn homeland.

Inside one house, the sources said, police found a virtual command centre, complete with conference table and maps, and entries in a notebook outlining police security tactics, standards and chains of command for the Auckland Commonwealth Games in 1990.

Mr Omar revealed yesterday that the Hendon Ave house was his home. He said he had decided to talk to the Herald to clear his name.

The ageing, balding amputee said he innocently bought the Sydney map at one of the hundreds of garage sales he has been to since coming to New Zealand five years ago.

"I have absolutely no idea what the marks were," he said through an interpreter.

Mr Omar said police raided his home twice in March, seizing maps of his homeland and of the world, letters, magazines and other personal effects. After the second raid, he said, they grilled him for six hours at the Henderson police station before letting him go.

Yesterday, he insisted he was not involved in any immigration scam, had never been charged, had no criminal record and had not been overseas since arriving here.

He said the other Afghan refugees he knew were also clean.

Mr Omar said the notebook police found which contained entries outlining security tactics for the Commonwealth Games in Auckland belonged to an Iranian refugee. But Mr Omar said he did not know the person.

The police, he said, also questioned him over a call made from his home to a satellite phone in Afghanistan.

He said a refugee who had just arrived in the country had made it. He pointed out that satellite phones were common in his homeland.

He said he had no sympathies with any terrorist group and that his only military links were an informal logistics role in a local militia during the 1979-1989 Afghan-Russian war. His role was to help fellow countrymen hurt in the battlefield.

Mr Omar pulled up his grey dress trousers to reveal a false lower right leg, the result of one of the many landmines in Afghanistan.

He told how he came to New Zealand with a friend five years ago after leaving his home province of Paktia, in southern Afghanistan. He came here, he said, to carve a new life for himself. His parents are dead and he has no other family.

Mr Omar has been living alone in his Housing New Zealand home for just over two years.

He receives the unemployment benefit and likes buying and selling at garage sales and markets.

Yesterday, he invited the Herald into his home. There was no evidence of a command centre or conference table, but in his lounge there were three small coffee tables, a few chairs, a single bed and a television.

Mr Omar said the closest he would get to the Olympics would be watching it on television. He said no one had anything to fear from him.

Meanwhile, Australian authorities have tightened security around the Lucas Heights reactor.

And the Sydney council near the reactor demanded last night that the Government shut the facility during the Games. Sutherland Shire Mayor Ken McDonell sent an urgent fax to Prime Minister John Howard urging a meeting to discuss the matter.

Speculation that the find in Auckland was linked to terrorist Osama bin Laden was yesterday rejected by Afghanistan's ruling Taleban movement."The Islamic Emirate decisively rejects this hollow and far-from-reality news and considers it as part of a vast plan by the enemies of the emirate," a Foreign Ministry statement said.