Parramatta shooting: Farhad Jabar’s gun allegedly came from Middle Eastern crime gang

7/10/2015

(Translation of this article appears in Arabic section)

THE weapon used by teen terrorist Farhad Jabar was believed to be sourced from a Middle Eastern crime gang and police suspect it was handed to the schoolboy at the Parramatta mosque.

Details about where he got the gun and its original source were established early in the investigation but the Telegraph was asked by police not to release details until after today’s raids.

Police believe a known Middle Eastern crime figure passed the .38 Smith and Wesson on to a radical without knowing exactly what it was to be used for.

It’s believed the weapon then ended up in the hands of the 15-year-old at the mosque just hours before he killed Curtis Cheng last Friday afternoon outside Police Headquarters.

The terror teen had been a regular member of an Islamic schoolyard prayer meeting being audited by the state government.

A spokeswoman for NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli last night confirmed the Muslim prayer group, held at lunchtime each Friday under teacher supervision at Arthur Phillip High School where Farhad Jabar was a student, had been reviewed following allegations pupils were preaching extremism at similar sessions at another school.

It can also be revealed a fellow student at Jabar’s school, who cannot be named, was a supporter of Islamic State and had been ordered to participate in a youth offenders conference after yelling abuse outside a Christian school and flying the terror group’s flag from a car window.

The latest developments come as a separate teenager was yesterday arrested on his way to the school for allegedly abusing and threatening police who had uncovered a series of extremist Islamic posts linked to his ¬social media accounts.

The 17-year-old student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was charged with assaulting police, resisting ¬arrest and using a carriage service to menace and harass. He was released on bail and will face children’s court on November 9.

Detectives are now scouring the social media accounts of classmates at Arthur Phillip, and students at other schools across Sydney, to combat the growing tide of online religious hate rants by radicalised schoolboys.

A boy identified by classmates as a friend of Jabar’s has shared an ¬extremist video heralding the end of days and calling western leaders such as Barack Obama “treacherous”.

The online rants and photographs of the boy arrested ¬yesterday suggest he is part of a gang of youths at schools across Western Sydney who regularly taunt police and mock.

Australia’s values

The Daily Telegraph found up to a dozen teenagers linked to the arrested boy who have written hate posts on social media attacking the police.

The boy has also shared photos of himself and other teenagers hanging around train stations with the caption “blood in blood out” and a ¬picture of a gun.

Alarmingly, the boy seems to have been radicalised only recently because after the Lindt Cafe siege last December he posted what appeared to be a sympathetic message for the two victims of terrorist gunman Man Monis: “RIP to those who lost their lives today.”

Despite the arrested teen’s long record of threatening the police, Education Minister Adrian Piccoli was not able to say yesterday whether the boy would be expelled from his school, or whether he would be allowed back in.

Instead, Mr Piccoli tried to reassure the community that his department was tackling the growing threat of extremist religious violence in the state’s schools.

“Over the past year the NSW government has been engaging stakeholders on a plan to tackle this issue within the wider community, including school communities,” he said. “This plan will be¬ -announced in due course.”

Also yesterday, the principal of Arthur Phillip High School, Lynne Goodwin, wrote a letter to parents trying to assure them there was no threat at the school. “NSW Police have advised the school that there is no ¬ongoing threat as a result of last Friday’s tragic event,” Ms Goodwin wrote.