SYDNEY, April 24: A Pakistani-born architect accused of plotting to bomb Sydney’s power grid and other sites wrote a “terrorism manual” and inquired about chemicals used in home-made bombs, a court heard on Monday.

On the first day of his trial, prosecutors told the Supreme Court in Sydney that Faheem Khalid Lodhi, 36, plotted to bomb Sydney’s electricity grid and various defence sites in October 2003.

The indictment said Lodhi, who denied four counts of preparing to commit a terrorist act, had “the intent of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause, namely violent jihad”.

Prosecutors have previously linked Lodhi, also known as Abu Hamza, to Frenchman Willie Brigitte, who was deported from Australia in late 2003 and has been accused in a leaked French intelligence dossier of planning a terrorist attack “of great size”.

Both Lodhi and Brigitte are alleged to have trained with Lashkar-i-Taiba, a militant group that Australia has banned as a terrorist organisation.

The court heard that Lodhi used a false name to buy two maps of the Australian electricity supply system and downloaded from the internet 38 aerial photographs of several military barracks.

Prosecutor Richard Maidment told the court that “fortunately, by late October 2003, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation... had got wind of some of the suspect’s activities and effectively disrupted his preparations”.

A search of Lodhi’s home and office found 15 pages Lodhi wrote which “could only be fairly described as a terrorism manual for the manufacture of home-made poisons, explosives, detonators and incendiary devices,” Mr Maidment said.

Lodhi had also used a false business name and address to inquire about chemicals capable of being used to make home-made explosives, the court was told.—AFP