Police officers at a crime scene in Surry Hills, Sydney, after four men were arrested. Photo / AAP
Police officers at a crime scene in Surry Hills, Sydney, after four men were arrested. Photo / AAP
The last of the four men arrested over an alleged Islamic State-orchestrated terrorist plot to blow up a passenger plane has been charged with a weapons offence and released by police this afternoon.
Spray painter Khaled Merhi, 39, was driven out of the back of the Sydney Police Centre into a media scrum after being held for seven days following police raids on his Surry Hills home and another five houses last Saturday.
The Australian Federal Police said he has been charged with one count of possessing a prohibited weapon and granted him police bail to appear at Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on August 24.
His solicitor Moustafa Kheir this afternoon released a statement on Twitter. "My client Khaled Merhi has also been released. Cleared of any terror allegation," it read.
Merhi's his brother-in-law Khaled Khayat, 49, and Khayat's brother, Mahmoud Khayat, 32, remain in custody after being charged last week over the alleged plan to smuggle a bomb onto an Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi on July 15.
Merhi's brother Abdul Merhi was released last Tuesday with no charges laid against him.
Counter-terrorism police had successfully obtained court permission to hold all the men for seven days under the "specified time" provisions of the Commonwealth Crimes Act which recognises that terrorism investigations are inherently complex and that there can be legitimate reasons for extended periods of detention in such matters.
Khaled and Mahmoud Khayat - whose older brother Tarek Khayat is a senior IS commander in Syria - are believed to be in Goulburn Jail's Supermax and will appear before court again on November 14.
The Merhi house in Cleveland St Surry Hills remained a crime scene all last week but was cleared yesterday and crime scene tape removed.
Police said they had a "mountain" of evidence to forensically examine after the July 29 raids on homes in Lakemba, Surry Hills, Wiley Park, Bankstown and two homes in Punchbowl.
Khaled Khayat has allegedly made admissions to police that was recruited but has said he acted alone.
Police will allege the bomb - which was sent in a kit from IS in Syria via Turkey to Sydney - was built in an everyday kitchen meat mincer and was due to be hidden in the luggage of one of the Khayat's brothers, Amer, when he boarded flight EY451 of EY455 direct to Abu Dhabi but for some reason the plan was aborted.
One suggestion is the bomb was too heavy for carry-on baggage and the other is that they got "cold feet".
The brothers were then allegedly given fresh instructions from IS to build a hydrogen sulphide gas bomb to be released in enclosed space on public transport, perhaps a bus or train.
That plan was thwarted by the police raids before the bomb was anything else but crude.
Solicitor Moustafa Kheir, who represents Abdul Merhi, said after his release last week that the whole family was in shock and he just wanted to go back to normal.
Mr Kheir said at the time he would be reviewing the actions of police.
The father of Khaled and Abdul Merhi, 50, Omar Merhi, has identified a cousin of theirs, Australian-born Ahmed Merhi, as an IS jihadi fighting in Syria.
