2005 Sydney terrorism plot
Planned terror attack in 2005 in Sydney, Australia
The 2005 Sydney terrorism plot concerned a group of five men arrested in 2005 on charges of planning an act of terrorism targeting Sydney, Australia's most populous city and the capital of New South Wales. The group was found guilty on 16 October 2009 and were sentenced on 15 February 2010 for terms up to 28 years.
Charges
Khaled Cheikho, Moustafa Cheikho, Mohamed Ali Elomar, Abdul Rakib Hasan, and Mohammed Omar Jamal were arrested in various neighbourhoods of Sydney and were tried in the New South Wales Supreme Court over a terror-related plot they planned between July 2004 and November 2005. Each pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to commit a terrorist act or acts. The final cost of the trial is expected to be more than A$10 million.
The Crown Prosecutor claimed that the men were motivated by a belief that Islam was under attack. The five allegedly had links to Abdul Nacer Benbrika, who is under arrest in Melbourne. Police searches of their homes discovered instructions on bomb-making, 28,000 rounds of ammunition (including 11,000 7.62×39mm), 12 rifles, militant Islamist literature, and footage of beheadings carried out by Islamists, and also of aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. According to the prosecution, the men purchased explosive chemicals and guns between July 2004 and November 2005.
Trial
The men were put on trial late in 2008.
“2005 Sydney terrorism plot” enters the record as planned terror attack in 2005 in Sydney, Australia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sydney, terrorism and plot can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“2005 Sydney terrorism plot” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Sydney, terrorism and plot provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4604910. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2004.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “2005 Sydney terrorism plot”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 2005 Sydney terrorism plot primary sources, 2005 Sydney terrorism plot archive and Sydney research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “2005 Sydney terrorism plot”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “2005 Sydney terrorism plot” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.