LONG before he was arrested in Yemen this week, Marek Samulski was suspected by intelligence services of keeping bad company. The 35-year-old Sydney web-designer of Polish extraction, commonly known as Abdul Malik, was boarding a plane at Sydney airport with his wife and children in August 2004 when ASIO officers swooped. "Malik's good looks and winning smile earned him an interview with the Anal Surveillance Investigation Officers," his angry wife Raygana later wrote. "They gave me mine and the children's passports and told me these were 'good' (but) they took Malik for questioning for about 30-45 minutes."
ASIO eventually let him board the flight, but it seems Samulski did not take the hint. Now he finds himself alone in a jail cell in Yemen - a captive of raids that have netted two other Australians and at least two senior al-Qa'ida figures alleged to have been plotting to import arms into Somalia. But the raids have also unearthed an extraordinary and disturbing network of "noodle-nation" links between senior terror figures in Australia and overseas.
| Hutchison, a convert to hardline Islam, has had her passport revoked at ASIO's request after trips to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, where she is suspected of rendezvous with extremists. |
The two men arrested alongside Samulski in Yemen were none other than Mohammed and Abdullah Ayub -- the sons of the notorious Abdul Rahim Ayub, the former head of Jemaah Islamiah's Australian terror cell. It turns out that the mother of the two boys and former wife of Ayub is Rabiyah Hutchison, one of the most closely watched women in Australia. Hutchison, a convert to hardline Islam, has had her passport revoked at ASIO's request after trips to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, where she is suspected of rendezvous with extremists. Hutchison is believed to have befriended Melbourne man "Jihad" Jack Thomas and his wife shortly before Thomas travelled on his ill-fated trip to South Asia in 2001 - a trip that led him to be charged with terrorism-related offences. "Hutchison got into the head of Jack Thomas and his wife when they were living in Sydney," one source told The Weekend Australian yesterday.
| Among Hutchison's friends is another Australian convert, Melanie Brown, the wife of jailed French terror suspect Willie Brigitte. |
The husband of Hutchison's eldest child Rahma is Khaled Cheikho, who is in a NSW prison awaiting a commital hearing on terrorism charges. Among Hutchison's friends is another Australian convert, Melanie Brown, the wife of jailed French terror suspect Willie Brigitte, and one of the key links between al-Qa'ida and several people in Sydney and Melbourne accused of terrorist offences.
Like Hutchison, | Samulski converted to Islam for love - so he could marry his South African Muslim girlfiend, Raygana Toefy, in 1992. |
Samulski converted to Islam for love - so he could marry his South African Muslim girlfiend, Raygana Toefy, in 1992. But his converison to the radical brand of Islam came a while after Hutchison's. A long-time friend said yesterday that up until September 11, 2001, Samulski had not been particularly religious. "For many years, he wasn't a strict Muslim; I can't ever remember him going to the mosque," said the friend, who asked not to be named. "But I do remember that around the time of September 11, he and his wife started acting differently."
She began wearing a burka and he started attending the mosque regularly. Soon after she had their third child in 2004, they moved to Yemen. "We were surprised they left so quickly; they didn't even say goodbye," the friend said.
| She was intent on moving the family to Yemen so that their children could be taught the way of Islam. |
Mrs Samulski seemed to have a strong influence over her husband and her beliefs were more radical. "Marek was a nice guy, very friendly, but his wife was a bit unusual," the friend said. "She was intent on moving the family to Yemen so that their children could be taught the way of Islam."
So how did this network of extremists come to be exposed by events across the other side of the world? The answers lie inside a red-brick apartment building in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, in a radical district just outside al-Islam University, which was home to the three Australians arrested this week. For six months, British and American spies had the building and two of its occupants under close watch. The furtive activities of a young British citizen and a firebrand Dane convinced them a terror plot was being hatched. Any new friends, or visitors, were scrutinised, such as the three young Australians who appeared on the scene some time in late September.
| In the early hours of October 17, the operation was shattered by a Yemeni secret police raid that swept up all eight foreigners living in the building and at least 12 other men across Yemen. Yemeni authorities insist they dismantled an al-Qa'ida cell and disrupted a gun-running ring to neighbouring Somalia. |
The trio -- the Ayub brothers and the Polish-born Samulski -- initially didn't fit the bill as terror suspects. The men the spies had been watching were strongly connected to ranking al-Qa'ida members. The newcomers didn't seem to be. But in the early hours of October 17, the British-led operation was shattered by an unexpected Yemeni secret police raid that swept up all eight foreigners living in the building and at least 12 other men across Yemen. Yemeni authorities insist they dismantled an al-Qa'ida cell and disrupted a gun-running ring to neighbouring Somalia.
The three weeks since have exposed much of the progress and many of the shortcomings in the Western efforts to collaborate with the Arab world in the war on terror. Yemen, a hotbed of radicalism in eastern Arabia and home to a steadily rising tide of militant Salafi Islamic beliefs, has long been a priority target for Western intelligence. But it has also been a surprisingly recalcitrant partner in getting the job done collectively.
| Abu Atiq was allegedly an associate of two of the September 11 hijackers and a protege of the virulently anti-Western Salafi cleric and head of Islamic studies at al-Islam, Abdul al-Majid al-Zindani. |
The US Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's MI6 are still fuming that their operation was blown. The man at the centre of the arrests is believed to be a senior Somali al-Qa'ida figure from the Horn of Africa states of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, who is known by the alias al-Ansar. As significant a figure as he is, the key to the raids appears to be a Yemeni known as Abu Atiq, who was arrested about six weeks before the October 17 swoop. Abu Atiq was allegedly an associate of two of the September 11 hijackers and a protege of the virulently anti-Western Salafi cleric and head of Islamic studies at al-Islam, Abdul al-Majid al-Zindani, who the US wants arrested on terror charges. But Atiq's biggest claim to notoriety is his alleged role in a foiled al-Qa'ida plot to bomb oil and gas facilities in Yemen.
All the men worshipped at a nearby Salafi mosque, in a dusty, downtrodden district with red-stone ramshackle houses, skittish, scruffy children and burka-clad women. When The Weekend Australian inquired about the Ayubs and Samulski, a man with a flowing ginger beard, selling perfume and soap, waved us down the road to the honey vendor. He passed us on to the skull-capped youths in the Islamic bookshop. The Salafis of Sanaa are a secret society within a culture that fears direct questioning from strangers or authority figures -- and with good reason. The secret police and Government Intelligence Service play a powerful role in Yemen, especially among groups like the Salafis, who are seen as a subversive threat to the regime. Many have ended up in the Central Security Prison in Sanaa.
It is here that the Australians are being held, in separate cells and without visitors. The Australian consul from the embassy in Riyadh is yet to be granted access to any of the men and British embassy staff in Sanaa were only allowed one fleeting visit before the Australian official arrived to take carriage. Mohammed Ayub celebrated his 19th birthday alone in his cell yesterday. Abdullah Ayub turned 21 in a nearby cell on October 21.
Locals in Sanaa insist, perhaps apocryphally, that the two stories of the complex above ground sit atop eight stories underground, where torture rooms and darkened cells are often used. Whether or not people are tortured here, Western officials and aid groups are adamant that torture is regularly used in Yemen on terror suspects, or political prisoners. With their infamous father and firebrand mother, the Ayub brothers are likely to be treated with caution by the Yemenis. And with scant consular access, the Australians may know little of their fate. The future may be more promising for Samulski, with Yemeni officials indicating he may be released soon, although Raygana has not been permitted to see him in prison.
In a blog in 2004, she speaks of her family's excitement about moving to Yemen, where they planned to learn Arabic and immerse themselves in Islam. "What I love about Yemen is the fact that everyone prays (and) there are many mosques within walking distance of our home," she writes. |
Lawyers for Jack Thomas will appeal to the High Court to prevent him being re-tried on terrorism charges. The Victorian Court of Appeal this week dismissed an appeal by his lawyers and ruled the former Melbourne taxi driver, who once styled himself Jihad Jack, should be re-tried.
RESTRICTIONS imposed on Melbourne terror suspect "Jihad" 
THE Australian mother whose two sons are in a Yemeni jail on terrorist charges was suspected of being involved in a Jemaah Islamiah plot to attack the Sydney Olympics. The Daily Telegraph understands Rabiah Hutchison, reportedly a former Mudgee dope-smoking hippie and now a radical Muslim who wears a burqa, was married to Indonesian Abdul Rahim Ayub. 
A VICTORIAN Supreme Court jury today found the 32-year-old Werribee man guilty of one count of intentionally receiving funds from al-Qaeda.