Dozens of senior figures from the Muslim community will attend a crisis meeting tomorrow night in the wake of the sentences handed down this week to five NSW men convicted of terrorism offences. The meeting will be held at the nation's largest mosque, in Lakemba in Sydney's southwest, and will be hosted by Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali -- formerly Australia's most senior cleric. Several other senior imams are expected to attend.The extraordinary meeting was called following an outcry within Sydney's Muslim community about the five offenders being sentenced on Monday to maximum jail terms of between 23 and 28 years for plotting violent jihad on Australian soil.
NSW Supreme Court judge Anthony Whealy said that, although there was no evidence that the men had identified a specific target for their crime, the fact that they had stockpiled vast amounts of ammunition and weapons, and were found to be in possession of extremist material, indicated that "each conspirator intended that the ultimate act or terrorist act
Sheik Hilali said the case had the "scent of hysteria" and argued that the men should not have been found guilty when there was no evidence of the group's "true intentions".
Islamic Friendship Association of Australia president Keysar Trad said yesterday that the Muslim community "detested terrorism in all its forms". "If we thought somebody in the community was plotting something, we would be the first to knock down their door and stop it happening," Mr Trad said. He said the feeling in the community was that the five men, who were convicted of conspiring to do an act in preparation for a terrorist act, had been "victimised". "It's human nature -- sometimes we all think about doing stupid things," Mr Trad said. "That doesn't necessarily mean we are always going to go through with it."
It is understood that senior law professor Ben Saul, from the University of Sydney, has been invited by Sheik Hilali to host a "question and answer" session on Australia's terrorism laws at Lakemba mosque next week.