The reality of religiously-motivated terrorism in Australia

On 8 May 2015 a young man, who for legal reasons can only be identified by the randomly chosen initials MHK, was arrested at his home in suburban Melbourne. The premises were searched over the next four days following which MHK was charged with doing an act in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act contrary to s 101.6(1) of the Commonwealth Criminal Code. The maximum penalty for that preparatory terrorism offence is life imprisonment with a possible fine of the equivalent of $360,000.

The prosecution of MHK was instituted in the Children's Court because at the time he committed the criminal acts he was 17 years of age. It was transferred to the Supreme Court of Victoria where MHK pleaded guilty and was sentenced by Justice Lex Lasry on 7 December 2016.

In substance, s 100.1 of the Code defines "terrorist act" as meaning an action or threat of action "which is done or the threat is made with the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause" and done or (made) with the intention of either, first, coercing, or influencing by intimidation, the government of the Commonwealth or a State, Territory or foreign country, or of part of a State, Territory or foreign country, or, secondly, intimidating the public or a section of the public.

The Commonwealth Parliament was reacting to the crystal clear reality that the scourge of contemporary terrorism involves mass murder of innocents around the globe by groups which openly proclaim and glorify their intention of advancing an integrated political, religious and ideological cause.

The three statutory adjectives are operatively distinct. In reality, they are invariably inter-linked because many, if not most, contemporary terrorist movements are linked by their desire to substitute theocracy for "loathsome" secular/western/democratic forms of government.

MHK was born in Australia in 1998. His parents had earlier fled Syria in the context of sectarian Shia/Sunni conflict. Because of his family background, MHK had a strong interest in what was happening in Syria. That led to a deeper involvement and strong commitment to his and his parents' religion and for a time the results were positive. He spent a lot of time on the internet seeking the teachings of religious scholars and came to think more about the events occurring in Syria and the suffering being inflicted on his co-religionists. He began absorbing Islamic State (IS) propaganda. As with other individuals, this led him to support IS and its campaign of violence. He contemplated travelling to Syria and joining the fight there, but this would have required his parents' approval to travel. After making contact with a person identified only as JH, he chose instead to support the IS jihad by launching a terrorist attack in Melbourne with a view to killing and injuring a significant number of people.

JH, who was 20 years of age at the time of his death (apparently in Syria) in August 2015 was an IS jihadist, propagandist and recruiter. He had been a party to a planned terrorist attack in London in 2013 using pipe bombs filled with nails.

By the end of 2014, MHK was watching films of sectarian atrocities being committed in Syria and had become completely absorbed in his religion. MHK was enrolled at high school until early 2015 at which time he developed an anxiety condition. In giving evidence at his sentencing hearing, MHK said that at that stage he regarded IS as defending his co-religionists from oppression globally and he considered IS as their saviour.

There is an alarming rapidity with which MHK embarked on his career as an Australian jihadist. His criminal acts occurred over a period of 11 days in April/May 2015. With the assistance of JH, MHK obtained and followed instructions for the construction of improvised explosive devices from materials freely available in the community and containing large amounts of shrapnel in the form of screws.

Inspired by his regard for JH as a martyr in the religious cause of IS, MHK's intention was to increase the number of deaths and injuries by placing one or more camouflaged explosive devices in the Melbourne CBD or on a train or at a police station.

The bomb-making instructions followed by MHK were expressed in language of religious hatred and contempt. MHK had used Facebook to post a large number of messages expressing his hatred for infidels and apostates likening them, for example, to cockroaches. He had in his possession jihadist material referring to the attacks in Australia in 2014 by Man Haron Monis in Sydney and by Numan Haider in Melbourne.

Justice Lasry found that MHK's actions in acquiring the materials necessary to make a bomb including acquiring several of the necessary parts only two days before his arrest made his intentions clear enough.

MHK also gave indications of what he was planning in private messages. On 7 May 2015, in the course of a Facebook exchange with a user identified as AW, MHK said that he had deleted his Facebook account permanently. AW responded, "If you leave permanently I will surely miss you." MHK replied that he would miss AW too but, in a signification of martyrdom, MHK said they would meet as birds in Paradise.

Justice Lasry sentenced MHK on the following bases:

• The only reason the bombs were not fully completed and not then activated by MHK in a public place was because the police intervened and arrested MHK. His intention to use them, as he had been urged to do by JH, knowing their potential consequences, persisted until the intervention of the police;
• This was not a case involving a mental illness with an identifiable cause and treatment. What was of concern was MHK's "adherence to ideas";
• The risk of MHK engaging in general criminal conduct was low. The only substantial risk of his re-offending was associated with violence inspired by religious belief or a perversion of religious belief. The evidence did not identify strong emotion associated with remorse for what MHK had done, and for whatever it was worth, Justice Lasry could not discount a reversion to his previous position, though he regarded MHK's position as being that such a thing was less likely the more progress MHK made.

MHK was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and directed to serve at least a minimum period of 75% of the head sentence which was fixed as five years and three months before being eligible for release on parole. The 579 days MHK spent in custody awaiting trial was to be reckoned as pre-sentence detention and recorded as time already served under the sentence. But for MHK's plea of guilty and all of the matters associated with that plea, Justice Lasry would have sentenced him to 11 years' imprisonment with a minimum of eight years and three months before being eligible to apply for release on parole.

Among the strong recommendations made by Justice Lasry was, first, that the Adult Parole Board of Victoria consider transferring MHK to a Youth Justice Centre so as to avoid him being held in an adult prison and, secondly, that he not be incarcerated with any other person serving a sentence for a similar offence where extreme and violent Islamic views were at the basis of the offending.

Every case has to be treated on its own distinctive facts. It should be beyond controversy that the murderous religious ideas which drove MHK to embark on a proposed terrorist attack and the circumstances which led him to embrace and put them into effect so swiftly should be a matter of full and frank public discussion.

Nevertheless, one abiding curiosity of the response of some observers in secular democracies to the ongoing pattern of global terrorist activity in the past two decades has been the inclination to suppress all public discussion of religious motivation of terrorist violence.

The curiosity is not because religious motivation and violence are incompatible. Rather, it arises because of a sectarian determination of censors to insulate one specific set of Abrahamic religious ideas, beliefs and practices from critical inquiry. Another feature of the reality of that contemporary terrorist denialism is that the more the urge is given voice, the more the debate about religious ideas has intensified.

One clue to what is driving that denialism was given on 23 December 2016, when the Victorian Premier, Mr Daniel Andrews, spoke at a media conference concerning the arrest of several young men in suburban Melbourne that day. Some of them have since been charged with preparatory terrorism offences.

The Premier concluded his remarks at the media conference with the following emphatic declaration:

What was planned here; what it will be alleged was going to occur, if not for the professionalism and hard work of our police, were not acts of faith. They were in their planning acts of evil, it will be alleged criminal acts, crimes, nothing more and nothing less. And all of us particularly at this special time of the year should remember that and understand that. Our values, our multiculturalism, our diversity is a great strength, a great strength – perhaps our greatest strength. And we should always remember that even when confronted by these sorts of challenges, challenges that so many in the world are facing.

If the Premier considers that "diversity" is a great strength, what is there to fear in diversity of opinion about religious ideas? Ideas about "faith" are no different than any other ideas. They stand or fall on their merits.

A wiser Premier, one informed, for example, by Justice Lasry's sentencing remarks in the MHK case, would have resisted the temptation to rush to judgment and to stifle public debate about religious ideas, beliefs and practices.

And, if such a person had entertained lingering doubts, she or he might have then considered the remarks of Justice Michael Croucher in Melbourne on 5 September 2016 in sentencing an 18 year old man (with "a mind corrupted by lunatic clerics") who had pleaded guilty to a charge of doing acts in preparation for, or planning, a terrorist act.