MELBOURNE, March 31 (UPI) -- Three men have been arrested for terrorism-related offences in Australia as authorities continue investigations into alleged terrorist cells in Sydney and Melbourne.
The three were arrested and charged Friday in Melbourne with membership in a terrorist organization and making funds available to a terrorist organization.
Bassam and Majed Raad and Shoue Hammoud, if convicted, could each face up to 10 years imprisonment for the first offence and up to 25 years on the second.
The newspaper said the Raads were understood to be followers of radical Islamic cleric Nacer Benbrika, who was one of 19 men arrested in November in a nationwide anti-terror sweep.
Australia is a key U.S. ally in Iraq and Afghanistan and has clamped down on Islamist radicals in the country following the bombings last year in Britain, allegedly committed by Islamist residents of the country.
The government of Prime Minister John Howard, together with a special council of Muslim representatives, is reportedly fashioning new immigration rules that would make it easier to deport clerics on work visas who preach hate or incite discord.
In other developments Friday, a possible al-Qaida sleeper agent was sentenced in Melbourne Friday to five year's imprisonment.
Jack Thomas, a convert to Islam, had trained at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan in 2001. He was detained at the airport in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2003 on his way back to Australia -- with a ticket and money given him by a senior al-Qaida official - after hiding out in al-Qaida safe houses in Pakistan.
Thomas had claimed he never intended to work for the group in Australia because he disagreed with their methods.
He was found innocent of intentionally providing himself as a resource for al-Qaida but was convicted of accepting funds from a terrorist organization and possessing a false passport.
