7 OCT 2026Jack Roche
7 OCT 2026 Australian Embassy bombing, Jakarta
On 9 September 2004, a suicide bomber set off a one-tonne bomb hidden in a truck outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. The Australian Federal Police say it was "the first deadly attack on an Australian diplomatic mission". The AFP says 10 people were killed on the day and more than 200 were injured, and that "all 10 victims were Indonesian citizens, including locally contracted staff who worked at the Embassy". Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in 2024 that the dead included 3 locally contracted staff of the mission.
Australia's response: under Operation Bantu, Australian investigators, forensic, technical and intelligence specialists supported the Indonesian National Police. The AFP says plastic pellets from the bomb's boxes helped link the attack to Jemaah Islamiyah members Noordin Mohammad Top and Azahari Husin. Both were later killed when Indonesian police tried to arrest them.
The attack came during Australia's federal election campaign, ahead of the 9 October 2004 poll. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said: "You would have to conclude that it was directed towards Australia". Prime Minister John Howard said: "This is not a nation that is going to be intimidated by acts of terrorism." The Guardian reported that the injured included Australian nationals and that Australia advised citizens to defer non-essential travel to Indonesia.
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7 OCT 2026 Hilali’s ‘September 11 is God’s work’ sermon
Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilaly was based at the Lakemba mosque in Sydney. During a Middle East lecture tour he gave a sermon at the Sidon mosque in Lebanon, and the Sun-Herald obtained a translation of it which quoted him as saying: "September 11 is God's work against oppressors." The same translation quoted him referring to "a civilian airplane whose secrets cannot be explained" and asking "the giant that fell: 'Who humiliated you?'" The report added that "A week ago, the Australian Federal Police decided against investigating the Mufti's overseas activities."
On 29 February 2004 Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Channel Nine that he had read a transcript of the speech. The ABC reported that he said the speech supported suicide bombings and described the September 11 attacks as God's work against oppressors. Downer said: "For an Australian to go overseas and make these sorts of comments is appalling, it's provocative." He also said: "it doesn't reflect the views of Muslims here in Australia".
Hilaly's spokesman Keysar Trad (spelled Kayser Trad by the ABC) said the Mufti had taken bits from poems. Trad said the reference meant "evil can reach everywhere and everything". The ABC quoted him saying: "He has always condemned and continues to condemn any attacks against civilians." In March 2004 Hilaly wrote to Prime Minister John Howard and other leaders. He said: "As for the claim that I referred to the tragic events of September 11 as 'God's work against oppressors', this is a terrible mistranslation." The same month he issued a statement saying any attack on Australia would be "an act of stupidity, recklessness and madness".
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7 OCT 2026 Beslan school siege
On 1 September 2004, at about 9.30am local time, masked armed men and women wearing bomb belts stormed School Number One in Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia, on the day of a ceremony marking the start of the school year. The BBC timeline says hostages were forced into the school gym and the building was reportedly mined. Officials first estimated 330 hostages, but released hostages later told Russian media that more than 1,000 people might be held. The hostage-takers demanded that Russian troops be withdrawn from Chechnya.
On 3 September, at about 1pm, two loud explosions were heard, followed by heavy sustained gunfire, and Russian special forces stormed the school. BBC Newsnight later reported that 326 people died, 186 of them children. It also reported that only one attacker was jailed and "not a single official found responsible for the attack".
Australian response: the ABC reported that Prime Minister John Howard sent a message of sympathy and condolence to President Vladimir Putin. Howard said: "I think there's a commonality in the obscene indiscriminate indifference, in such a cruel way, to human life." Opposition Leader Mark Latham said: "What sort of people go out of their way to hurt children?" Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia would consider sending a small group of Australian Federal Police with terrorism experience. Russia's ambassador, Leonid Moiseev, said the Canberra embassy had been inundated with calls and emails from Australians. Howard said the local Russian Orthodox community was raising resources.
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7 OCT 2026 Theo van Gogh murdered, Amsterdam
Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh, 47, was stabbed and shot dead while cycling in Amsterdam on 2 November 2004. Police arrested a 26-year-old man with joint Dutch and Moroccan nationality in a nearby park after an exchange of gunfire in which the suspect and a police officer were both wounded. Van Gogh had received death threats after his film Submission, made with Somali-born politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali and portraying violence against women in Islamic societies, was shown on Dutch TV. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said "it is unacceptable if expressing your opinion would be the cause of this brutal murder".
On 26 July 2005 an Amsterdam court sentenced Mohammed Bouyeri to life in prison without parole, ruling that the murder was a terrorist act. The BBC reported that the killer slashed van Gogh's throat and used a knife to pin a letter to his chest that threatened Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Holding a copy of the Koran, Bouyeri told the court that "the law compels me to chop off the head of anyone who insults Allah and the prophet". The BBC also reported that after the murder, mosques in several Dutch cities were vandalised or targeted in failed arson attempts.
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Nick Berg beheaded on video, Iraq
Nicholas Berg, 26, was a private businessman from Pennsylvania who had gone to Iraq looking for contracts. His body was found by the side of a road near Baghdad. On 11 May 2004 an al-Qaeda-related website posted a video titled "Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi slaughtering an American". The ABC reported that one of five hooded men read a statement denouncing the abuse of Iraqi detainees by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison, and that Berg was then beheaded. The ABC also reported it remained unclear whether Zarqawi personally carried out the killing.
US President George W Bush said there was no justification for the beheading, or for releasing the footage on the internet (ABC).
Australian angle: Australia had troops in Iraq at the time. No Australian government statement on Berg's killing was found in ABC reporting, which covered it as overseas news. Later that year Foreign Minister Alexander Downer called the beheading of British hostage Ken Bigley "barbaric" (ABC, 9 October 2004).
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Introduction
Jack Roche, a Muslim convert, was arrested on 18 November 2002, about five weeks after the Bali bombing. His case concerned a plot that was disrupted, not an attack that took place.
In the Perth District Court in May 2004, Roche was tried for conspiring to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra. He pleaded not guilty at the start. On the tenth day of the trial he changed his plea to guilty, admitting he had conspired with al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah to bomb the embassy.
On 1 June 2004 Judge Paul Healy sentenced him to nine years' imprisonment, backdated to his arrest, with a non-parole period of about four and a half years. He was released on 17 May 2007.
What Roche told police
Much of what the court heard about how the plot came together came from taped police interviews with Roche, which were played in court. That material was his own account, presented as evidence, rather than judicial findings.
In those interviews he said he travelled to Afghanistan in March 2000, met Osama bin Laden, underwent explosives training, and agreed to identify US and Jewish targets in Australia. He said Hambali, the Jemaah Islamiyah operations chief, sent him to Pakistan and Afghanistan and gave him about $8,000 to fund the attacks. Notes in evidence referred to identifying the Israeli embassy and a Jewish businessman as targets.
The court was told the plot was called off on the orders of the Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. That was Roche's account; Bashir has denied involvement in Jemaah Islamiyah.
Government Response
The prosecution followed an ASIO and police investigation into Jemaah Islamiyah activity in Australia after the Bali bombing.
Judge Healy was reported as saying sentencing was difficult because there were no precedents. He was also reported as saying the plot had every chance of being carried out had Roche not decided that enough was enough, and that the sentence had to act as a strong deterrent. He said he would have imposed 12 years but reduced the sentence because of information Roche gave to federal authorities. The ABC reported that Roche's cooperation may have assisted in the arrests of Hambali and another senior al-Qaeda figure.
Summary
The case came before an Australian court after the Bali bombing had killed 88 Australians. Roche pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra, and was sentenced to nine years.
During the trial the court also heard notebook evidence referring to a meeting with Hambali at which "the possibility of doing something in Sydney during the Olympic Games was discussed". This is evidence that such an action was discussed, but the conviction was for the embassy conspiracy only.
You be the judge.
Evidence
- ABC News, Roche jailed for 9 years, 1 Jun 2004
- ABC News, Sydney Olympics targetted by terrorists, court told, 19 May 2004
- Al Jazeera, Bashir 'called off' Israeli embassy attack, 26 May 2004
- CNN, Australia arrests man over embassy bomb plot, 19 Nov 2002
- Al Jazeera, Australia convicts first terror accused, 1 Jun 2004
- VOA News, Australia Sentences Terrorist to 9 Years in Prison, 1 Jun 2004
- ASIO, ASIO disrupts Jemaah Islamiyah cell
