Holy Reticence and the Hijacker’s Shadow

When an individual comes within seconds of steering a commercial passenger jet into an international airport, one might expect the institutions that housed his early ideological turn to offer a thorough reckoning. Instead, Melbourne Islamic preacher Samir Mohtadi has chosen the ancient art of holy reticence.

Following revelations by United Arab Emirates authorities that an alleged airliner hijacker spent crucial formative years at a mosque affiliated with his organisation, Mohtadi—who also operates under the name Abu Hamza—posted a four-minute social media video. Rather than addressing the specific institutional footprint of radicalisation, he urged his followers to embrace silence when under attack, citing religious examples of fasting from speech during moments of criticism. It is a masterclass in spiritual deflection: transform legitimate public scrutiny into a simple test of faith and endurance.

The details emerging from Abu Dhabi are stark. According to UAE Attorney General Dr Hamad Saif al-Shamsi, Omani national Hammam al-Hammami began his ideological drift towards extremism while studying engineering at RMIT University in Melbourne in 2017. Investigators assert that the 29-year-old regularly attended a campus-affiliated mosque, establishing ties with individuals connected to Mohtadi’s organisation, MyCentre.

Al-Hammami’s trajectory soon moved well beyond Victoria. After leaving Australia without finishing his degree, he underwent flight training in New Zealand between late 2018 and mid-2019, eventually obtaining a commercial pilot qualification. The culmination of this path occurred on September 30, when passengers and crew aboard a Flydubai flight carrying 182 people intervened to stop his attempt to hijack the aircraft and crash it into Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. Prosecutors state that al-Hammami drew direct inspiration from the September 11 attacks, preparing himself both physically through private boxing training and mentally through extremist content.

To be clear, UAE authorities have stopped short of alleging that MyCentre or its staff directly radicalised the co-pilot, maintained contact with him, or had any prior knowledge of the plot. Yet the institutional nexus has inevitably drawn Australian and New Zealand security services into re-examining how such radical shifts develop within domestic student environments.

Canberra’s official posture has remained typically measured. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke quickly highlighted online radicalisation, emphasizing the need for stricter border screening and digital oversight. It is a convenient focus that frames modern extremism primarily as an invisible internet phenomenon rather than an issue tied to physical community centres.

Meanwhile, the management at MyCentre maintains that when people are fixated on their opinions, explanation is futile. It is certainly one way to handle public relations in a crisis. Whether security agencies can afford to treat spiritual retreat as a substitute for genuine transparency is quite another matter.

Written by Thorben Thiede thorben.thiede@alpineweekly.com