- Joined
- Mar 11, 2013
- Messages
- 13,203
- Points
- 113
“Sydney man jailed after buying knives for ‘imminent’ terrorist attack,” by Georgina Mitchell, Sydney Morning Herald, November 11, 2020:
A young man who bought knives from a western Sydney gun shop in preparation for an imminent terrorist attack has been jailed for at least 12 years after a judge described him as a committed terrorist….
In jailing him for a maximum of 16 years with a non-parole period of 12 years, Justice Bellew said he is satisfied the man is “an unequivocally committed terrorist who, in acting as he did, was motivated by an extremist, perverted and corrupt ideology which advocated violence in the name of religion”.
“I am satisfied that a terrorist attack, to be perpetrated on innocent members of the public with the use of the knives which had been purchased, was imminent,” Justice Bellew said….
The 20-year-old – who cannot be named because he was 16 at the time of his offending – went to the Bankstown store with a friend, also aged 16, on October 12, 2016. He gave the friend money and waited outside as the friend bought a knife sharpener and two serrated M9 bayonet knives that were about 30cm long including the handle.
The pair had visited the same store six days earlier and bought two other knives, telling the shop attendant they were going pig hunting….
The teenagers then went to a Bankstown prayer hall, where they were arrested at about 12pm and charged with doing an act in preparation or planning for a terrorist act…
Justice Bellew said the man had accessed a large amount of extremist material, including YouTube videos about knife attacks, in the lead-up to buying knives for the second time on October 12.
He had previously downloaded a copy of the Islamic State magazine, searched on his phone 17 times for a video produced by Islamic State, and visited websites with titles including “When is it waajib for a person to ask his parents permission to go to jihad”.
When the man was arrested, police searched his backpack and found the knives, a receipt from the gun shop, a knife-sharpener, a mobile phone with no battery or SIM card, a phone case, a pair of goggles, and a piece of paper.
The paper said in Arabic: “I advise you to fear God … and pledge allegiance to the Caliph, because whoever dies without pledging allegiance will die a pre-Islamic death.”
Justice Bellew also outlined the man’s behaviour in custody, including receiving 100 misbehaviour reports while in juvenile justice, climbing on top of cricket nets and refusing to come down for 65 hours, and going on a hunger strike.
More recently, the man barricaded himself in his cell at Goulburn, had to be physically carried into court by four correctional officers for his sentence hearing, and ranted at that hearing that it was “islamophobic” and a “false proceeding”….
