A bit excessive?

Call me soft if you will: i can't help but think that 20 years behind bars is a little excessive considering the guy didn't actually do anything. Seriously, who hasn't thought about strangling Andrew Bolt, Peter Costello and John Howard?

Bomb plot man gets 20 years
Kenneth Nguyen and Lisa Allan
August 24, 2006

THE 20-year jail term handed to a man who wanted to blow up Australia's electricity grid was a sign of how tough the courts will be on terror-related crimes, legal experts say.

Faheem Khalid Lodhi, 36, will spend about as much time in jail as an average murder sentence after he was caught in early stages of a criminal plan that a judge conceded lacked viability.

The sentence will come as a relief to the Federal Government, after the first person jailed under its tough anti-terror laws, Joseph "Jihad Jack" Thomas, had his conviction quashed last week.

Lodhi showed no emotion yesterday as he was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court.

Lodhi, the first person convicted under the new laws of planning a terror attack on Australian soil, had been "essentially informed by the concept of violent jihad and the glorification of Muslim heroes who have fought and died for jihad", Justice Anthony Whealy said.

The court had heard previously that the Pakistani-born architect, who lived in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba, used a false name to obtain two maps of the national
electricity grid in October 2003.

Lodhi had also sought information from a company about the availability of chemicals to manufacture explosives (which he never obtained), and had written a 15-page terrorist manual with recipes and instructions on bomb-making, hand grenades, petrol bombs and poisons.

Lodhi was linked to French terrorist suspect Willie Brigitte, whom he picked up from Sydney airport in May 2003. Justice Whealy said Lodhi and Brigitte (who was deported later that year) had a "joint interest in contemplating and discussing the possibility of some type of terrorist activity in Australia".

Justice Whealy said although Lodhi's plot was thwarted at a very early stage and there was a "general lack of viability and sophistication" in his actions, it had the potential to have an impact on Australia's stability.

Had the attack been carried out [but it wasn't!], it "would instil terror into members of the public so that they could never again feel free from the threat of bombing attacks within Australia".

The judge added: "One has only to think of the consequences on the national psyche of a tragedy such as the Port Arthur massacre to realise how a major terrorist bombing would or could impact on the security, the stability and wellbeing of the citizens of this country."

Lodhi will serve a minimum 15 years for acting in preparation for a terrorist attack by seeking information about chemicals capable of making explosives.

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