The Western bureaucrats just refuse to get it. A few days ago I reported that membership to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood still provides one with asylum in Australia. Yesterday, the Australian revealed that one of these Muslim brotherhood members, Syrian Ahmad al-Hamwi, Osama's bagman and relative through marriage, is living as an asylum seeker Sydney. He had to leave the Philippines because he was involved in a plot to blow up 11 planes. He is also directly related to BOTH world trade center bombings.

Hamwi is allegedly connected to the international web of Osama bin Laden, and his terrorist arm, al-Qa'ida.

Hamwi has been accused of being a senior al-Qa'ida bagman linked to the 1993 World Trade Centre bomber, Ramzi Yousef.

Living for a decade in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Riverwood, he has admitted he was a confidant of some of bin Laden's closest lieutenants, and he is a relative by marriage to the world's most wanted man.

Since Hamwi, also known by the alias Abu Omar, was given asylum in June 1996, it has been revealed he was a key figure in a Manila-based charity funding Yousef's terrorist cell, which was conspiring to blow up US airliners and assassinate Pope John Paul II.

Hamwi was, by his own admission to the Refugee Review Tribunal, a key figure in the Islamic charity known as the International Research and Information Centre.

According to Philippines National Police intelligence reports obtained by The Weekend Australian, Hamwi and his two colleagues at IRIC were funding Yousef's plans, codenamed Operation Bojinka, which were a harbinger for September 11.

Research by world-renowned terror expert Zachary Abuza also alleges that Hamwi was an"important money man for the cell".

"He (Hamwi) was the hand-picked executive director of the IRIC, which had little in the way of charitable works and I refuse to believe he did not know what was going on," Abuza told The Weekend Australian yesterday."At the time, (in the mid-1990s) the IRIC was involved in funding the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front), al-Qa'ida and Abu Sayyaf, the group involved in military training with Jemaah Islamiah operatives."

According to Abuza, Hamwi helped bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, with introductions to set up al-Qa'ida's network in Southeast Asia, and then ran IRIC for him as a front for terrorist financing.

The pair lived together for years and married Filipina sisters, Nora and Alice.

For Khalifa, this was one of two wives - his other wife is Osama bin Laden's older sister.

Today, the Federal Police affirmed that they"are 'aware' of man's al-Qaeda link but declined to elaborate further. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock also would not comment."

GANESH SAHATHEVAN who follows this case believes he found his case report:

It appears that the applicant in RRT Reference: N95/09809 is Ahmad Al-Hamwi. As the excerpts from the case repost attached below will show, Ahmad Al-Hamwi , members of his immediate family, his friend and associates are all members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Halwi was granted asylum , on the basis, in part, of his membership of the Brotherhood. In this regard , readers attention is also drawn to the statement in the story from THE AUSTRALIAN concerning the questions the Tribunal put to DFAT aand ASIO:

The tribunal asked ASIO whether Hamwi was"directly or indirectly responsible for any acts of terrorism", and despite Hamwi being interviewed several times by the intelligence agency,"neither ASIO nor DFAT could or would provide any evidence to the tribunal in this regard".

Readers are urged to read the case report in full to gain a full understanding of the matters outlined above.

I am submitting , based on the facts disclosed in the case report and the story in The Australian that the matter of Ahmad al-Hamwi provides further evidence of links between Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, in particular how the Brotherhood and its members support financially the activities of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates.

If all this is leaving you a bit queasy, you are not alone. By the way, Hamwi's best"buddy" who was deported from the US, is alive and well and living in Saudi Arabia.

Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, told The Weekend Australian that Canberra had"in the past had a policy where people who were very much involved in terrorism could enter Australia".

But Gunaratna said this had now changed in the wake of the Bali bombings.

Really? It hardly seems so.