Victorian terrorist Shane Kent is today languishing in jail awaiting sentencing for his role in the home-grown cell that planned to wage a jihad war in Melbourne. His lawyers would like you to think Kent, 32, was all talk and no action and claimed last week that sentencing judge Bernard Bongiorno should allow him to walk free from prison. One of his barristers recently claimed Kent was more a "barracker" for the terror cell run by his mentor, convicted terrorist and a Muslim cleric than an active participant. Another of Kent's lawyers has also questioned whether the cleric was a serious threat. He claimed during the cleric's trial last year that there was no concrete indication that the cleric was doing anything more than "beating his chest and rattling cages". How would those lawyers know whether the terrorist training undertaken by Kent would turn into deadly action? How would those lawyers know if meeting al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, as Kent did while learning the tricks of the terror trade at an Afghan training camp, would spur Kent on to do bin Laden's bidding? And would those lawyers have been prepared to be the ones to decide whether or not to arrest them rather than risk a terrorist act being committed?
It's easy for a defence barrister to say, with the benefit of hindsight and in the comfort of the courtroom, "but he didn't actually do anything". Those lawyers weren't the ones listening in real time to secretly recorded conversations between the cleric and his impressionable cell members as they discussed possible targets and the size of the bomb they might make.
Victorian and federal police were eavesdropping on the many such scary conversations and it was they who had to decide, under pressure, if lives were at risk. They had to tread the fine line between moving in to arrest too early without enough evidence to convict and waiting just that day too long and having the cleric or one of his deluded followers blow something up. If they got it wrong and waited too long the inevitable inquiry would have turned up the content of Benbrika's conversations and there would have been outrage that police knew what he was saying and didn't stop him.
So, OK, as the defence lawyers keep insisting, the cleric and Kent - and the cleric's other radical Muslim followers - didn't actually kill anybody. But are those lawyers really confident they had no intention of doing so? Bin Laden allegedly met and spoke to Kent in Afghanistan shortly before the jets flew into the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001. Police have information from witnesses that bin Laden discussed Australia with Kent and that Kent promised in bin Laden's presence to carry out violent jihad. Kent returned to Melbourne soon afterwards and began regularly seeing the cleric and his followers. Terrorism investigator Sen-Det Ben Condon told Melbourne Magistrates' Court in 2005 that Kent had used his training with al-Qaida to assist the cleric's group. "He did pledge an allegiance to Mr bin Laden," Sen-Det Condon said.
Kent converted to Islam in the mid-1990's and usually used his adopted Muslim name Yasin. He travelled to Afghanistan in 2001 to undertake terrorist training as part of a global Islamic uprising. Police have a statement from somebody who attended the al-Farooq training camp in Afghanistan at the same time as Kent. It confirms Kent met bin Laden and pledged his support. Kent's terrorist training included learning military tactics, use of explosives, topography and how to fire AK-47's and rocket-propelled grenades.
Police investigating the cleric's terrorist cell were on edge about the looming October 2004 Federal election due to snippets of information picked up on listening devices that indicated politicians might be targets. Kent was one of those involved in the taped discussion on September 27, 2004, about the election being "the best time to do something". He has pleaded guilty to being a member of a terrorist group and recklessly making a document connected with preparing a terrorist act. The document he admitted making is an al-Qaida propaganda video that glorifies the role of Muslim jihads and encourages killing in the name of Islam.