Date | 3 August 2011 |
---|---|
Location | Mosman, New South Wales, Australia |
Coordinates | 33°50′30″S151°14′51″E / 33.8417°S 151.2474°E |
Cause | Suspected collar bomb |
Suspects | Paul Douglas Peters |
Charges | Aggravated break and enter, detaining for advantage |
Verdict | Guilty |
Convictions | 13.5 years (minimum 10 years) |
The Mosman bomb hoax took place in the Lower North Shore Sydney suburb of Mosman, New South Wales, Australia on 3 August 2011. An apparent collar bomb was placed around the neck of 18-year-old student Madeleine Pulver [1] by a balaclava-clad home intruder. [2] A note attached to the device stated that any attempt to alert law enforcement would "trigger an immediate BRIAN DOUGLAS WELLS event". [3] Brian Wells was a pizza delivery driver who was killed in a bank robbery involving a collar bomb in 2003. [3]
The dummy device was of such sophistication that it took the Police Rescue & Bomb Disposal Unit almost 10 hours to ascertain that it was not an explosive device, and then to dismantle and remove it, in part with the telephoned assistance of a British Army major who was in Australia for training. [4] The incident, which attracted media attention worldwide, [1] was treated as an extortion investigation. [5] [6]
Paul Douglas Peters, a man with no direct links to the victim or her family, was arrested in Kentucky, United States, after leaving Australia a few days after the incident. Police were unsure of motive, but were not looking for other suspects. Peters was extradited to Australia on 24 September 2011 and was held without bail by New South Wales Police. [7] On 8 March 2012 he pleaded guilty in Sydney's Central Local Court to aggravated break and enter and detaining for advantage. On 20 November 2012, Peters was sentenced to a prison term of 13 years and 6 months, with a non-parole period of 10 years. In sentencing the judge said although Peters had marital and mental health issues, he engaged in a "deliberate act of extortion" and was not in a psychotic state at the time of the offence. [8] Peters appealed his sentence to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal. On 20 December 2013, the Court unanimously dismissed the appeal. [9]
Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, also known as Abu Hamza al-Masri, or simply Abu Hamza, is an Egyptian cleric who was the imam of Finsbury Park Mosque in London, where he preached Islamic fundamentalist views.
The Scottish National Liberation Army (SNLA), nicknamed the Tartan Terrorists, is a Scottish nationalist paramilitary group which aims to bring about Scottish independence from the United Kingdom. The group was founded in 1980 by Adam Busby, a former soldier from Paisley, after the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, which the organisation claims was fixed. The group's activities primarily involved sending letter bombs to UK government officials, carrying out arson attacks, and making numerous hoax threats of violence, before declaring a ceasefire in 2012, to allow debates leading up to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum to take place.
Adam Stuart Busby is a Scottish nationalist who claims to be the founder of the Scottish National Liberation Army. In 1983 after a hoax letter-bombing campaign against high-profile public figures he organised attacks from Dublin involving anthrax hoaxes, bomb threats, and genuine parcel bombs. In 1997 he was jailed in Ireland for two hoax phone threats against Scottish media organisations.
On August 28, 2003, pizza delivery man Brian Douglas Wells robbed a PNC Bank near his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, United States. Upon being apprehended by police, Wells died when an explosive collar locked to his neck detonated. The FBI investigation into his death uncovered a complex plot described as "one of the most complicated and bizarre crimes in the annals of the FBI".
The Bali Nine were a group of nine Australians convicted for attempting to smuggle 8.3 kg (18 lb) of heroin out of Indonesia in April 2005. The heroin was valued at around A$4 million and was bound for Australia. Ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were sentenced to death and executed on 29 April 2015. Six other members, Si Yi Chen, Michael Czugaj, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, Matthew Norman, Scott Rush and Martin Stephens, were sentenced to life imprisonment whilst another, Renae Lawrence, received a 20 year sentence. She was released after the sentence was commuted in November 2018. The Indonesian authorities reported on 5 June 2018 that Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen had died of stomach cancer. In November 2024, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sought the repatriation to Australia of the remaining five members of the Bali Nine. On 15 December 2024, the five remaining members of the group were repatriated to Australia, and their life sentences were commuted with immediate effect.
Robert Lindsay Hughes also billed variously as Bob Hughes and Robert Hughs, is an Australian-born British former actor who appeared in ABBA: The Movie and the television sitcom Hey Dad..!.
Dragan Vasiljković, nicknamed Captain Dragan is a convicted war criminal and former commander of a Serb paramilitary unit called the Kninjas during the Yugoslav Wars. In 2005, prosecutors in Croatia accused him of committing war crimes during the wars. A warrant for his arrest was subsequently issued by Interpol.
The Whiskey Au Go Go fire was a fire that occurred at 2:08 am on Thursday 8 March 1973, in the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia that killed 15 people.
Antonios Sajih Mokbel is an Australian criminal who has been convicted of a number of offences, most prominently commercial drug trafficking. He has spent most of his life in Melbourne, Australia. Operation Purana alleged that he is the mastermind behind the Melbourne amphetamine trade. He has been linked to Carl Williams, and charged but not convicted of two murders in the Melbourne gangland war. He disappeared from Melbourne while on trial in March 2006, and was arrested by Greek police in Athens on 5 June 2007. Since being brought back to Australia he has remained incarcerated.
Terrorism in Australia deals with terrorist acts in Australia as well as steps taken by the Australian government to counter the threat of terrorism. In 2004 the Australian government has identified transnational terrorism as also a threat to Australia and to Australian citizens overseas. Australia has experienced acts of modern terrorism since the 1960s, while the federal parliament, since the 1970s, has enacted legislation seeking to target terrorism.
Margaret Mary Cunneen SC is an Australian barrister, prosecutor and commissioner of a government inquiry.
The Abergil Organization is an Israeli organized crime syndicate that has been active since the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The organization was founded by brothers Yaakov, Avi and Itzhak Abergil, of Moroccan Jewish origin, in the city of Ramat Gan, Israel, in the 1990s. The Abergil Organization is involved in a wide range of criminal activities, including drug trafficking, money laundering, and extortion.
Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to international attention in 2010 after WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from Chelsea Manning, a United States Army intelligence analyst: footage of a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, U.S. military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and U.S. diplomatic cables. Assange has won multiple awards for publishing and journalism.
Failed terrorism plots are terrorist plots that have either been foiled, uncovered by authorities or failed through mistakes.
William Pulver is a former Australian sporting administrator. He was the CEO of the Australian Rugby Union after succeeding John O'Neill in early 2013.
A large number of Australian schools received hoax bomb threats in late January and early February 2016. Other similar phone threats, including school shootings and chemical attacks, were also received by a number of schools across Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. A total of 591 threatening calls were received by Australian schools.
In early 2017, a wave of more than 2,000 bomb threats were made against Jewish Community Centers in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Denmark. Two arrests and two convictions were made in connection with the threats: Michael Ron David Kadar, a dual American-Israeli citizen, who received a ten-year sentence, along with Juan M. Thompson, a former journalist, who received a five-year sentence.
The 1971 Qantas bomb hoax was an extortion and robbery committed by Peter Macari and Raymond Poynting on 26 May 1971, where Macari, under the alias of "Mr. Brown", extorted $500,000 from Qantas by informing officials that he had hidden a bomb onboard Qantas Flight 755 from Sydney to Hong Kong, and that the device would explode if the plane were to descend below 20,000 feet. In exchange for the safety of the 128 passengers and crew on board Flight 755, Macari demanded a ransom of $500,000. While authorities negotiated with Macari, Flight 755 was forced to circle Sydney; however after over six hours in the air and with fuel supplies dwindling, Qantas was forced to concede. At around 5:45 p.m., in Chifley Square, just outside Qantas company headquarters, Captain RJ Ritchie, a Qantas general manager, handed Macari the ransom money through the window of a Volkswagen Kombi. Sometime after 6:00 pm, Qantas received a final call from Macari stating that there was no bomb onboard Flight 755. The plane was able to land safely at Sydney Airport around 6:45 p.m.
The Bandidos Motorcycle Club is classified as a motorcycle gang by law enforcement and intelligence agencies in numerous countries. While the club has denied being a criminal organization, Bandidos members have been convicted of partaking in criminal enterprises including theft, extortion, prostitution, drug trafficking and murder in various host nations.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)