A teenager who has been made to wear a GPS tracking device since terrorism charges against him were dropped last year should remain under a control order, the Australian federal police has argued.
Harun Causevic, 19, was arrested with four others over the suspected Anzac Day terrorist plot in Melbourne on 18 April last year and released from prison in August when terrorism charges against him were dropped.
He was placed under a control order in September, conditions of which require him to wear a tracking device, prohibit him from attending more than one mosque, and restrict his internet use.
His lawyers argued there were no grounds for maintaining the control order after the terrorism charges had been dropped, and that he was being punished without charge.
They have also argued that the tracking device was hindering Causevic’s employment opportunities, which they said was not in the community’s interest.
In a 10-day hearing at the federal court in Melbourne, which concluded on Friday, lawyers for the AFP argued that the purpose of the order was not to punish Causevic but to protect the public.
The teenager sat between his parents, who arrived in Australia as Bosnian refugees, while counsel for the AFP, Stephen Donaghue QC, outlined the case against him on the first day of the hearing. His little brother sat on the padded bench outside the courtroom playing a game on a mobile phone.
“Were it not for the intervention of police on 18 April last year, the probability is that Mr Causevic would have carried out a terrorist attack on Anzac Day,” Donaghue said. “It’s probable that that act would have resulted in the death of law enforcement officers, and potentially civilians, and potentially Mr Causevic himself.”
Donaghue alleged that Causevic was involved in an alleged plot to run over and then decapitate a police officer at the Shrine of Remembrance, a war memorial in Melbourne’s Kings Domain park on St Kilda Road, on Anzac Day.
The allegation that Causevic was involved in the plot is the centrepiece of the AFP’s case for maintaining the order. They have to satisfy judge Norah Hartnett that, on the balance of probabilities, a control order would substantially help prevent a terrorist attack.
It is a lower burden of proof than required for criminal charges.
Sevdet Besim, 19, also from Melbourne, pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of doing an act in preparation or planning for a terrorist attack, in relation to an Anzac Day plot.
Reporting on Causevic’s control order hearing was restricted until after Besim’s case was resolved.
Donaghue told the court that Causevic’s involvement could be inferred because he was friends with Besim, and because a search of his house and car by AFP officers turned up three knives, which Causevic pleaded guilty to possessing; a flag bearing the shahada; and an envelope on which he had written two Turkish phone numbers, including the name of an Islamic State recruiter.
He also alleged Causevic conducted reconnaissance on targets identified by Besim, which Causevic has denied.
The court heard that Besim had allegedly discussed possible targets in a lengthy message exchange with a teenager from the UK, naming the Shrine of Remembrance and the Returned Servicemen’s League club in Dandenong as a back-up.
“There’s a strong basis to infer that Mr Causevic had been in on the plan that Mr Besim was forming because he was looking at the same targets,” Donaghue said.
Causevic’s lawyers disputed that claim.
The alleged reconnaissance allegedly took place on 15 April 2015. The court heard that Causevic set off from his workplace in Sunshine, on the west side of the city, and headed home to Springvale, in the south-eastern suburbs.
His lawyers submit that he was following the directions of Apple Maps and took a wrong turn, which sent him down St Kilda Road. They said that if he drove by the Shrine of Remembrance, it was in the course of trying to backtrack.
Donaghue said Causevic was being tailed by undercover police officers, who lost sight of him for four minutes when he did a U-turn, giving him enough time to loop the shrine.
Later, Donaghue said, two AFP officers put the same directions that Causevic said he used into Apple Maps and set off from the same address in Sunshine. They made the same wrong turn he had, which put them on St Kilda Road. Donaghue claimed the app invited them to turn left many times before reaching the shrine.
Footage of the re-enactment was played in court.
“There was no reason why Mr Causevic should have been in that part of Melbourne driving around that shrine if he was not part of Mr Besim’s clearly telegraphed plan to target it in a terrorist attack on Anzac Day, either here or at the Dandenong RSL,” Donaghue said.
Causevic allegedly drove past the Dandenong RSL later that day. His lawyers argued that he was driving to the Dandenong mosque to pray.
But Donaghue said the most direct route between the supermarket and mosque was a 1.3km three-minute drive with no traffic lights, while Causevic, according to his police tail, drove for 14 minutes longer, looping 5.65km around the main street and through 12 sets of traffic lights.
The only reason to take this “curiously lengthy, indirect route,” he said, was to drive past the RSL; and the only reason to do that, he submitted, was because it was the back-up target.
The court also heard that Causevic “waved” the shahada flag at a marked Victoria police car while stopped at traffic lights on St Kilda Road, though the police apparently did not see. Causevic, in an interview with the AFP, said he was “just folding it”.
It also heard Causevic drove in a slow circle around the petrol bowser at a service station in order to look at a marked police car, allegedly to note its equipment.
“We submit that when you start to put all these pieces together … the coincidences just pile up, in our submission, in a way that is just not plausible,” Donaghue said.
The judgment has been reserved.
