The father of two accused terrorists has denied a family happy snap showing himself and his son displaying a distinctive one-fingered hand gesture is the salute of ISIS.
Armagan Eriklioglu – the father of accused terrorists Samed and Ertunc Eriklioglu – said the gesture was commonly used by Muslims long before it was hijacked by the terrorist organisation.
‘No no. That’s not an ISIS salute. It means one creator. Everyone does that. We don’t know anything about a ISIS salute. Nothing at all. Not us. No way,’ he said.
Samed (left), father Armagan and Ertunc
‘All we know is from hadith, prophet Muhammed done that 1 finger,’ he later clarified via text.
‘You can read hadiths about it. So ISIS has been around few years. That flag finger don’t belong to those idiots. We have been around more than 1440 years. Whoever made ISIS, they’re showing Islam bad.’
The gesture was widely adopted by the Islamic militants as a propganda symbol for their cause.
The photo was among a bundle of family happy snaps provided to Daily Mail Australia by Mr Eriklioglu during a visit to his Campbellfield home on Wednesday.
In his backyard, the bungalow where his son Samed Eriklioglu lived with his elderly grandmother looked anything but a terrorist lair.
Samed, 26, and his older brother Ertunc Eriklioglu, 30, are both looking at life in prison after yesterday being charged with planning a terror attack on Melburnians.
Days after the early morning raids, the brothers have been described as dedicated family men, who worked hard and previously travelled overseas without incident.
The bungalow is clean and tidy apart from the damage created by police when they burst in to arrest Mr Eriklioglu’s youngest son Samed.
Samed Eriklioglu’s bed in his parents’ backyard bungalow is kept neat and tidy
Armagan Eriklioglu inside the bungalow where his son lived with his grandmother
The entrance to the bungalow where Samed Eriklioglu slept, but police crashed through a side door
The side door police burst through to arrest Samed Eriklioglu on Tuesday
He showed Daily Mail Australia happy snaps of his sons together, enjoying family outings and overseas holidays.
After being handcuffed and forced to his knees at gunpoint, Mr Eriklioglu’s wife offered the masked police a cup of tea.
She remains untrusting of the media, but still rushed out to present photos of her sons at weddings, with family and enjoying time together.
Neighbours described the entire family as decent people and are stunned at the allegations the men planned to commit mass murder.
Ertunc (left) and Samed (far right) enjoy time with their grandfather while on a trip to Turkey
Samed and Ertunc during a visit to an aquarium
Samed relaxes with his phone, which was confiscated by Federal Police.
The arrests have shocked no-one more than Ertunc’s young wife Habiba Ba, who gave birth to Ertunc’s second daughter just two months ago.
She was awoken in the early hours of Tuesday to the sounds of breaking glass and men with guns shouting.
‘When they raided the house, they came from nowhere. We were sleeping in bed. I have small children who were in the house. Also my sister’s boy is only two weeks and my daughter is two months and my husband has his little daughter as well,’ she said.
‘We were all scared. It was terrifying. They had a gun and everything and they pushed my husband. He cut (his face) when they broke the windows and my husband was just screaming. They were screaming and he screamed back.’
Mrs Eriklioglu said her husband’s face was cut when police pushed him to the ground, which was covered in broken glass.
‘When I talked to my husband the police said ‘don’t talk’ in a very rough way and I still talked. I said ‘how you doing?’ and he said ‘I’m okay, don’t worry’.’
The living room area of Samed Eriklioglu’s bungalow, where his grandmother sleeps at night
The kitchen area inside the Campbellfield bungalow of Samed Eriklioglu
The backyard of Ertunc Eriklioglu’s Campbellfield home
Mrs Eriklioglu said her young daughter watched as police cuffed her father and took him away.
‘She said ‘I don’t like it. Why break it – where they took Bubba’,’ she said.
The terrified woman said she remained without her hijab while police tore apart her property.
‘I told them ‘can I have my hijab – my scarf – and they said ‘No. you have to wait for the detective to come in and talk to you in a minute’. I said ‘let me have my scarf. And one man came and gave it to me,’ she said.
‘They were very rough and they didn’t even care the kids were here.’
The petite mum, who escaped war torn Burma, said her husband was completely innocent.
‘They haven’t done nothing wrong. If you look at their history, they haven’t done nothing. No criminal history. Nothing. They have done nothing. I can’t believe this. There is no truth to it,’ she said.
‘I wasn’t expecting it at all. Our family is good. We go to the park, we go to picnics, we have barbecues. We weren’t expecting something like this – three men in a terror attack. It’s not true.’
Mrs Eriklioglu said her husband could barely protect himself after breaking his wrists after a fall from a ladder about a year ago.
‘He’s still not better. He’s had an operation and has metal in his wrists. He was in Dandenong Hospital for a week. He can’t move properly,’ she said.
‘He’s trying to open a business with his brother. He works. They’re normal people. Just because they pray in the garage doesn’t mean that they would do such a thing.’
The garage she speaks off was where the brothers and their father Armagan Eriklioglu would meet to pray.
The garage of Ertunc Eriklioglu, which was used as a makeshift mosque by the family
A box of screws left by police after raiding the garage in Dallas
Religious books and texts left in ruin among the rubble of the Dallas garage
The garage where brother accused of planning a terror attack met to pray
The garage lies in ruin today after police tore it apart looking for evidence.
What remains could be the contents of any Muslim Australian’s garage.
Boxes of screws, a painter’s mask and boxes of household junk.
Samed and Ertunc Eriklioglu
Mrs Eriklioglu denied the brothers had been radicalized while praying in the garage – cruelly dubbed by some media as ‘The Blue Mosque’.
She has only spoken to her husband once on the phone while he sits in remand at the Melbourne Custody Centre.
‘I don’t know how we’re going to cope. We didn’t sleep. We haven’t eaten well … my mother-in-law is alone now. She’s lost her sons. How’s she going to live,’ Mrs Eriklioglu said.
Police had already confiscated the brothers’ passports months ago – taking Samed’s at the airport in January as he tried to board a plane with his mother to visit relatives in Turkey.
Ertunc’s was collected by police at his home.
‘My husband asked ‘why? what did I do’ and they didn’t give an answer,’ Mrs Eriklioglu said.
Mr Eriklioglu said his sons were against extremist teachings and were in fact hardworking Australians.
‘My youngest son just handed over his passport. No aggression. He was with his mum. She couldn’t go as well. They lost the money,’ he said.
A painters mask remains on the floor of the Dallas garage
The backyard of Ertunc Eriklioglu’s Dallas unit
Outside the garage where the brothers used to meet to pray
Inside the garage remains trashed after the police raid
Mrs Eriklioglu said she had previously travelled to Thailand for a holiday with her husband without incident.
Mr Eriklioglu recalled the moment police smashed in his front door, almost taking his head off with it.
‘If I was a little closer I would have been injured badly,’ he said.
Police had thought his son was living in the main house and not in the bungalow in the backyard.
He took Daily Mail Australia through his immaculately kept home, pointing out the various places police busted it apart.
‘It’s like they used our place as a police training exercise. What else are they going to do?’ he said.
He described his sons as placid, gentle men who enjoyed playing football and soccer.
‘They’re not aggressive. They’re quiet. Very quiet. They were born here – one went to Erinbank Secondary College and the other to Gladstone Park Secondary College. Good students. Good grades,’ Mr Eriklioglu said.
The proud father said everyone knows his boys have a clean history.
‘Even the federal police,’ he said.
The three accused will all return to court next year.
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