Preacher to quit Perth as followers drift
Mohammed Junaid Thorne, the radical young Perth preacher linked with terrorism raids and suspects in the Eastern States, says he is planning to leave WA.
Thorne said yesterday that he would probably move to Sydney to live in a bigger Muslim community.
He said the plan was not related to death threats by members of the public or scrutiny by the authorities, who are understood to have closed his bank account recently.
Thorne's group of young followers in Perth appears to have splintered under close attention by Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation officers.
On his personal Facebook page this week, he posted a picture of himself with a dozen youths giving the index-finger salute associated with Islamic State, believed to have been taken south of Perth early this year, with the comment: "I miss you boys. It's sad how some of you changed :(."
His elder brother Shayden, who returned to WA after being jailed in Saudi Arabia for terrorism-related offences, was also in the photograph.
Leading Perth imams have warned their young flocks to stay away from Thorne, who claims Muslims do not need to follow Australian laws.
He has been banned from speaking in Perth's mainstream mosques because of his support for IS but was welcomed yesterday at a community centre in Gosnells where a new mosque will soon be built.
More than 100 worshippers of all ages listened to Thorne speak and lead prayers as officers from the Australian Federal Police watched from a nearby carpark.
During the sermon, Thorne took a swipe at imams who have supported the Federal Government's antiterrorism measures and have denounced the actions of other Muslims, including himself, in the kuffar (non-Muslim) media.
"People who we are supposed to look up to are reaching out to the kuffar media and condemning and turning against their own Muslim brothers," he said.
"We should associate only with Muslims and we disassociate ourselves from with those who disbelieve."
He claimed the Government was "extending evil and harm" towards Muslims.
A member of the mosque building committee, Bilal Sheik, said he saw no reason to remove Thorne from the roster of imams speaking at the centre.
"We have a shortage of imams and he has scholarship and training and knows how to translate the Koran so in that fact we don't discriminate with our scholars," he said. Thorne declined to be interviewed by _The Weekend West _.
