Daily Star - Australian prosecutor seeks tough sentence for Lebanese, November 15, 2008

A Lebanese-Australian who became the second person convicted under Australia's tough anti-terror laws has been found guilty in absentia of terrorism charges in Lebanon, Australia's The Australian newspaper reported Friday. A Lebanese judicial source told The Daily Star on Friday that the Lebanese was sentenced in absentia for falsifying legal documents. According to the newspaper, at a sentencing hearing in the New South Wales (NSW) Supreme Court on Friday, lawyers for Belal Saadallah Khazaal, who has been found guilty of producing a book knowing it could assist in a terrorist act, argued that his convictions in Lebanon should not be taken into account because he was never able to present his side of the case. Khazaal, 38, of Lakemba in Sydney's southwest, was convicted in absentia in Lebanon for his alleged involvement in funding the 2003 bombing of a McDonald's restaurant in Dora, north of Beirut. According to the judicial source, he was then jailed for two years and then extradited to Australia. More recently, he was sentenced in absentia to 15 years for falsifying a passport for another Australian man who had fled to Lebanon from Australia. According to The Australian, this information was not revealed to the jury in Khazaal's NSW Supreme Court trial, at which he was convicted in September of producing a book described as a "do-it-yourself terrorism guide" containing an assassination hit-list that included US President George W. Bush. In the first conviction of its kind in Australia, Khazaal was found guilty of the offense of compiling a book knowing it could assist in a terrorist act. However, the NSW Supreme Court jury failed to reach a verdict on a second charge against Khazaal of attempting to incite a terrorist act. On that basis, Khazaal's barrister, George Thomas, argued that any sentence handed down to his client must be at the lower end of the scale. Khazaal was arrested and charged in June 2004 over the publication on the Internet of a 110-page book titled "Provision on the Rules of Jihad" - short rulings and organizational instructions for fighters and mujahideen against infidels. Khazaal was among the first people charged after the federal government introduced tough new terrorism laws in late 2003. His conviction followed that in June 2006 of Faheem Khalid Lodhi, a Sydney architect who became the first person convicted under the new laws. The book listed various means of assassination, including letter-bombs, booby-trapping cars, kidnappings, poisonings and shooting down planes. The book also contained a hit-list of officials and countries to be targeted, including Australia and the US. The Australian reported that in the Supreme Court Friday, Khazaal's close friend and doctor, Tamir Khalil, said Khazaal was suffering from medical ailments including a possible neurological condition that might have affected his behavior at the time of the offense. Khalil said that he had known Khazaal for many years and had never known him to display any violent tendencies, or even to talk about violence. But the doctor said Khazaal's medical history indicated a possibility he might have a tumor on his brain and this should be investigated. Khazaal's wife, Mervat, also gave evidence, telling the court her husband spent a lot of time working with angry Muslim youths, trying to protect them from their own emotions. "He tried to cool them down," the wife told the court. She described her husband as a lovely man who was honest and generous and respected her. During the trial, self-styled US "terrorism expert" Evan Kohlmann described the book as a do-it-yourself guide aimed at people who did not have Osama bin Laden's telephone number. Khazaal will be sentenced at a date to be fixed next year, The Australian said. - Agencies, with The Daily Star