FOREIGN Minister Julie Bishop has frozen assets, including Australian companies, belonging to Sydney terrorists Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar, who are fighting with Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria. Ms Bishop slapped the ban on the pair under a UN Security Council resolution, passed in the aftermath of the deadly September 2001 al-Qaida attacks on the US, calling on member states to cut off the financial lifelines of terrorists. “These listings make it a serious criminal offence, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or substantial fines, to use or deal with the assets of Elomar or Sharrouf, or to make assets of any kind available to either of them, whether directly or indirectly,” a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said. “Listing Elomar and Sharrouf sends a strong message to anyone who recruits for, or travels overseas to join, a terrorist organisation that the Australian government will do everything within its power to combat the threat of terrorism on all fronts.” Anyone in Australia holding assets on the pair’s behalf is required to immediately tell the Australian Federal Police and DFAT. Elomar is described as using aliases including Abu Hafs al-Australi, Gun and Sugamoey, while Sharrouf is listed under names including Abu Zarqawi and his Twitter handle, Soldierofkilafah. The pair, who are wanted by the AFP, remain company directors despite leaving the country late last year. Sharrouf, who shocked the world in August when images of his son holding a severed head were published, is the director of Australian company KGBV Investments. Listed as fellow directors are Vasko Boskovski, a standover man shot dead at his Earlwood home in Sydney’s southwest in July last year, and former Comanchero bikie Bilal Fatrouni, whose name is spelled “Billy Faytrouni” in company documents. Mr Fatrouni did not respond to a phone message left at the home address given in the documents. In 2011, Sharrouf was sentenced to three years’ jail for conspiring to commit a terrorist act, but he served just a few weeks after time served while awaiting trial was taken into account. Elomar, who left Australia last November, is a director of Lifese Steel Fabrication & Rigging, a company he jointly owns with his father, Mamdouh. A spokesman for the Elomar family said the company had no connection with the family’s Lifese Engineering group. “The company referred to is an abandoned company with no function, that is not operating, and has no value,” he said. “The company was established in 2005, and was ultimately an unsuccessful attempt to involve the son in a business venture. “Mamdouh has since disowned his son, and the company ceased to function many years ago. “The Elomar family supports any moves by the Australian government to freeze or strip assets of those involved in any way with terrorism.” After escaping the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s, Mamdouh Elomar built the Lifese Engineering group up into a successful contractor that on its website boasts of work on projects including an upgrade to the Lihir gold mine in Papua New Guinea and a 200m jetty in Abu Dhabi. In September, Mr Elomar said he was “very shamed” by the activities of his son, who has threatened to kill Mr Elomar’s friend, Jamal Rifi. “I want to show the Australian people we are Australian and we don’t believe in all this nonsense,’’ Mr Elomar said. Sharrouf reportedly fled Australia, where he had been working with bankrupt Sydney building industry identity George Alex, last December after falling out with other underworld figures over the right to collect a $9 million debt allegedly owed by billionaire property developer Harry Triguboff’s Meriton group. Meriton has previously said that it has met all its payment obligations and that no debt remained outstanding.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 05:24:47 +0000
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