How Jake Bilardi’s family reacted after he told them he joined Islamic State

Jake Bilardi’s loyalty to Islamic State sent shockwaves through his family. His siblings were upset and demanded answers. Read the transcript, hear the audio.

It was the usually blissful week between Christmas and New Year’s in 2014 when Sarah Sans decided to try one last time to stop her brother blowing himself up in Iraq.

In an agonising conversation over Twitter, four months after Jake Bilardi disappeared from their Melbourne home, she begged him to question Islamic State’s “brainwashing” and to think of his family who feared they would have to change their surname.

Photos of the 18-year-old in the Middle East had started circulating online, sparking global headlines as Sarah reached out to his Abu Abdullah al-Australi account.

“I just want to feel, for a second, like I am talking to my brother and not an isis soldier,” she told him.

“We may not be Muslims, but we’re your flesh and blood.”

Bilardi was unmoved. From a laptop in an Islamic State bolthole in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, he told Sarah about his plans for a suicide mission.

Security video of Jake Bilardi checking in for his flight at Melbourne airport on 25 August, 2014. Picture: Supplied

John Bilardi, father of Jake Bilardi. Picture: Channel 9

It made her feel as though “you only talk to us because you want to brag to someone”.

Sarah questioned whether her brother cared about his family, only for Bilardi to reply: “I hope that one day you will all come back to Islam … In the meantime, I’m here and your (sic) there.”

Other than an interview given by Bilardi’s father John, his family kept quiet at the time of his death as they tried to come to grips with the high school dropout’s radicalisation. But seven years later, the extraordinary trial of the Islamic State mastermind who recruited Bilardi revealed the pain his family endured and their desperate pleas to prevent his death.

Fear, anger and guilt flooded through Sarah’s messages to her brother. She said she was convinced he was mentally ill, that his actions were a “spectacular way” to deal with the death of their mother from cancer, and that she wished he had kept seeing a psychiatrist.

Read all of Sarah’s conversation with Jake in the transcript below:

“You used to be so smart, and rational. It’s so sad to see this happen man,” Sarah said.

“You could have overcome these things and built a good life.”

Bilardi laughed her off, saying that he “never wanted to build a good life in this world”.

He offered to call his sister again before his suicide bombing, but that was too much for Sarah.

“I think you’ve made a horrible choice that you’ll regret when you’re dead and there’s nothing there for you,” she said.

Inside Jake Bilardi's bedroom before he left his Australian life behind. Picture: Supplied

“I’m angry at you. But I love you because you’re my little brother. And I hope your death is painless.”

“I’m sorry that your life was painful. I wish I could’ve done more to make it better.”

The next day, Bilardi exchanged messages with Mirsad Kandic, the Islamic State terrorist who recruited him and supported his suicide mission. Kandic asked Bilardi if he had contacted his family in preparation for his death.

Listen to a conversation between Jake and Mirsad.

“I spoke to my sister on Twitter,” Bilardi replied.

“It didn’t go to (sic) well.”

Bilardi’s traumatic exchange with Sarah was one of several used as evidence in the United States trial of Kandic.

Bilardi’s siblings did not testify, having dodged an investigative team hired by Kandic’s lawyers to track them down in Australia. Nevertheless, the jury was given a glimpse of what they went through.

Mirsad Kandic was convicted of supporting ISIS by recruiting, spreading propaganda and smuggling guns for the terrorist organisation. Picture: Supplied

They heard a call from October 2014, in which Bilardi’s brother Chris also apologised to the 18-year-old when he called hours before he thought he would blow himself up.

“I’m sorry for how you were treated when you were here,” Chris said.

“I just want you to know that we all love you.”

Confronted with Bilardi’s planned “martyrdom operation”, Chris tried to reason with him, saying he did not “know what it’s achieving”.

“I have so many, so many Muslim friends and none of them would even consider doing this,” he told his brother.

Listen to Jake’s phone call with Chris below:

Bilardi stubbornly replied that it was “pretty evident what it’s achieving”, even though he knew he “wouldn’t be able to convince you that it’s right”.

Chris said the family was “completely clueless” about Bilardi’s radicalisation. He probed for details where his brother was and how he made it there, but Jake was cagey, refusing to talk about Kandic’s recruitment of him.

An items found by police inside Jake Bilardi’s bedroom in Craigieburn, Melbourne. Picture: Supplied

“I don’t really want to explain too much about that,” he said.

Bilardi also kept in touch with his brother Jesse. In an eerie call before his death in March 2015, Jake told him of the “huge co-ordinated operation” in Ramadi in which he would blow himself up in a car.

Jesse seemed resigned to his younger brother’s fate, saying he thought he had missed the chance to speak to him one last time when Bilardi did not answer his call the day before.

Listen to Jake’s phone call with Jesse below:

Due to parts of the recording being inaudible, follow the transcript below:

Jesse asked for the login details for Bilardi’s blog so it could be taken down when he died.

After that conversation, Bilardi exchanged a final series of messages with Kandic, who again asked if he had spoken to his family before his suicide mission.

“I have been keeping in contact with my brother, everyone else doesn’t want to speak to me,” Bilardi said.

Originally published as How Jake Bilardi’s family reacted after he told them he joined Islamic State