A former Australian jihadist who trained with the Indonesian militant group Jemaah Islamiah and later left Australia for Yemen has resurfaced in Norway.
He is now at the centre of a heated controversy over the proposed building of a Saudi-funded mosque.
Former Perth man Andrew Ibrahim Wenham has emerged as a central figure in a fiery public debate over construction of a mosque in the small town of Tromso in northern Norway.
The controversy had been inflamed after Wenham’s history of jihadist activity in Australia was reported in a front-page expose in a local newspaper, headlined, “Muslim leader involved in terror network”.
Wenham told The Australian last night he regrets his past involvement with JI and now fears it will derail the mosque project and damage the Islamic community in Tromso, where he has lived since 2002.
“I regret that I landed myself in something like this,” he said. “I never had any intentions to be involved in any terrorist organisation. Totally the opposite. I didn’t even know I was in a group -- they never called themselves JI. I didn’t realise it was a group until afterwards.”
The expose detailed Wenham’s training at a JI camp in Mindanao in the southern Philippines in 2000, and his meeting with JI operations chief Hambali, the mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings, who tried to recruit him for a terrorist operation.
Wenham resisted Hambali’s advances, instead leaving Australia for Yemen, where he lived for 10 months before relocating to Norway.
He is now a leader of the al-Noor Islamic congregation in Tromso, whose bid to build a new mosque with Saudi funding has sparked consternation in the local community.
When he was first approached last month by journalists from the Tromso newspaper Nordlys, which was investigating the mosque proposal, Wenham denied his past involvement with the jihadist movement, according to reporter Sissel Wessel-Hanson. However, he later contacted the newspaper and confirmed its story.
Wenham said he went to Mindanao for “the adventure”, did not know who Hambali was, and lost touch with him after their meeting in 2000.
He said he was later “shocked” to learn his friend and fellow British-Australian JI member Jack Roche, who went to Afghanistan instead of him, was involved in an al-Qa’ida plot to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra. Roche pleaded guilty to the conspiracy and served 4 1/2 years in jail.
“I made a mistake,” Wenham told Nordlys. “I was involved in something that today I am totally against. What these people did was forbidden in Islam.”
Wenham’s journey as a jihadist began when he moved to Australia from Britain with his family in 1997, shortly after converting to Islam.
In Perth, he befriended a fellow convert, John Musa Bennett, who introduced him to the leaders of JI’s Australian branch, the brothers Abdul Rahim and Abdul Rahman Ayub.
The former had once been married to Sydney woman Rabiah Hutchinson, who later became a person of significant interest to ASIO because of her involvement with JI and later the Taliban and al-Qa’ida.
In Perth, Wenham took part in paintball training exercises with the local JI group and was then sent for a six-week military training course at JI’s Camp Hudaibiyah in Mindanao.
His training there is documented in a 2000 report from the JI Military Training Academy, which is cited in a 2005 book by a former JI lieutenant, the Malaysian Mohammed Nasir bin Abas, who ran the training camp.
The report refers to Wenham as “Ali, member of Mantiqi Ukhro, Australian citizen, trained for 1 months beginning on the 4th December 1999 til the 21sts January 2000". Mantiqi Ukhro was Mantiqi 4, the name of JI’s Australian branch.
When contacted in Tromso, Wenham told The Australian: “Going to the Philippines, it was training, but it was more like, when the time came you would be needed to defend Muslim lands, but it wasn’t terrorism”.
Roche told The Australian Wenham had been Hambali’s first choice to travel to Afghanistan to plan a terrorist operation.
Abdul Rahim Ayub became frustrated when Wenham would not commit to going. “He did not give a definite answer and wasted time in coming to a decision,” Ayub said. As a result, Roche says Ayub asked him to go instead, to “teach Wenham a lesson”.
Wenham said he decided to split with the group after learning of Roche’s role in an al-Qa’ida plan to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra and assassinate Jewish-Australian businessman Joseph Gutnick.
Wenham has lived quietly for the past nine years in Tromso, where he serves on the board of the al-Noor mosque, headed by his wife, Sandra Maryam Moe. Wenham had been dreading the day his past would come to light.