Australia: “Disabled” Muslim with two wives gets six years for helping send young Muslims to wage jihad in Syria

This is a stunning indictment of the welfare and immigration policies that prevail not just in Australia, but all over the West. Hamdi Alqudsi has been allowed to live on the dole with his two wives while he plotted jihad. Australian authorities let him flout Australian law and plot jihad murder. These policies will be the death of us all. They must be ended.

“Six years’ jail for terrorist recruiter who sent jihadis to Syria,” by Simone Fox Koob, The Australian, September 2, 2016:

A western Sydney terrorist recruiter, a disability pensioner with two wives, has been sentenced to six years jail for helping send young Australian jihadis to Syria to fight.

Hamdi Alqudsi held up one finger and called out “I love you” to his relatives in a Parramatta courtroom yesterday at his Supreme Court sentencing.

A jury found the 42-year-old guilty of seven counts of performing services between June and October 2013 for persons with the intention of entering Syria to engage in armed hostilities. At least two of the men — Caner Temel and Tyler Casey — died fighting overseas.

Alqudsi’s wives quietly sobbed and several of his stepchildren watched as judge Christine Adamson handed down a sentence of eight years, with a fixed non-parole period of six years.

He will be eligible for release in July 2022.

Much of the trial focused on intercepted calls and text messages seized by police that detailed conversations between Alqudsi and Australian fighter Muhammad Ali Baryalei discussing accommodation for the men, the price of weapons and conditions for jihadi fighters.

The Syrian war was referred to as a “soccer game” that required “A-League players”, and Alqudsi as the coach.

Alqudsi did not give evidence until a sentencing hearing last month, where he broke down in tears and told the court: “I love Australia. I always have … I am not a terrorist man.”

His defence lawyer argued that his client wanted to help protect innocent civilians stuck in the civil war and was arranging the travel to war-torn Syria for humanitarian reasons.

Justice Adamson said she was convinced Alqudsi was a “central point of contact” for the men and “took upon himself the role of commander”, adding that the most valuable service he provided was connecting each of the men to Baryalei, which meant they could cross the border from Turkey to Syria.

She accepted the prosecution’s analogy that the offender was the “centre of a wheel in which the seven men and Mr Baryalei were the spokes”.

In considering sentencing, Justice Adamson was “not persuaded that the offender is either contrite or remorseful” and did “not regard his prospects of rehabilitation as good”….