The federal court has upheld a control order against a Melbourne teenager linked to last year’s foiled Anzac Day terrorist plot but ordered that his GPS tracking device be removed.
Australian federal police officers removed the ankle tracker from Harun Causevic at the commonwealth law courts building in Melbourne on Friday, after Judge Norah Hartnett ruled the impact it had on the 19-year-old’s ability to get a job and general rehabilitation outweighed the benefit to the AFP’s monitoring of the former terrorism suspect.
Causevic had been wearing the tracker for nine months, since a few days after the AFP was granted an interim control order on 10 September 2015.
In a lengthy judgment handed down on Friday, Hartnett confirmed that the control order, with some changes, would remain in place until 11 September.
The assistant commissioner of the AFP, Neil Gaughan, had argued that the tracking device was “by far the single most important control in reducing the risk that the respondent will carry out a terrorist act”.
The 170g device was fitted to Causevic’s left ankle and allowed the AFP to plot his movements in real time using Google maps.
But Gaughan conceded under cross-examination from Causevic’s lawyer, David Neal, that the tracking device was an impediment to Causevic gaining employment, and that him being unemployed and idle was a negative thing for his development and the broader community.
Speaking to the media outside court on Friday, Neal said the removal of the tracking device was a win.
“We’re very pleased with the outcome, justice has been done,” he said.
Other than removing the tracking device, Hartnett varied the orders to remove the prohibition on going within 100m of the Shrine of Remembrance war memorial in Melbourne and the Returned Servicemen’s League club at Dandenong.
She also removed a reference to the Al-Furquan Islamic information centre, a pro-Isis community centre that Causevic attended, because it closed in April last year.
Causevic was arrested on 18 April 2015 on the allegation that he was involved in a plan to behead a police officer at either the Shrine of Remembrance or Dandenong RSL on Anzac Day last year.
He was held in jail until the charges were dropped in August. Charges were also dropped against all but one of his five co-accused, 19-year-old Sevdet Besim.
Besim last month pleaded guilty to planning the terrorist attack and remains in jail awaiting sentencing.
In their application to maintain the control order, the AFP argued that Causevic had conducted surveillance at the Shrine and Dandenong RSL on 15 April 2015, and alleged that a conversation he had with Besim about “arm-wrestling” was a coded discussion about his preparedness to engage in an act of violence.
Hartnett found there was “no basis on the evidence” for inferring that Causevic was conducting reconnaissance, and said the discussion about “arm-wrestling” could have been referring to a literal arm wrestle – Causevic and Besim were both regular weightlifters and gym attendees – and should be given “little or no weight”.
But she said the control order should be maintained, even though there was no evidence that Causevic was involved in or had knowledge of the Anzac Day plot.
“The court is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that confirming the Interim Control Order would substantially assist in preventing a terrorist act,” she said. Most of the events that prompted the issuing of the control order were in the past, she said, but not “comprehensively so”.
Under the conditions of the order, Causevic must remain at his family home in Hampton Park, Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, between midnight and 5am, and must not go within 500m of an airport or port that offers international travel.
He is prohibited from going within 100m of a military establishment and cannot visit a jail, or a mosque or place of worship other than his local mosque in Dandenong, without written permission from the AFP’s Joint Coordination Terrorism Taskforce.
The control order also prohibits him from contacting certain people, including Besim; from possessing a weapon; from accessing information about weapons, any form of terrorist attack, or anything to do with Isis; and from using a mobile phone or computer other than those approved by the AFP.
He is also ordered to attend counselling once a week.
