‘Tinnie terrorists’ face maximum penalty of 25 years jail

TERRORIST sympathisers accused of hatching a Monty Python-style plan to sail a tinnie to Indonesia have been charged with terrorist offences that carry a maximum penalty of 25 years in jail.

‘ISIS cheerleader’ Musa Cerantonio leaves Maidstone mosque.

TERRORIST sympathisers accused of hatching a Monty Python-style plan to sail a tinnie to Indonesia have been charged with terrorist offences that carry a maximum penalty of 25 years in jail.

Senior national security sources confirmed last night that five Melbourne terrorist sympathisers who drove 3000km to north Queensland towing a boat, to sail to Indonesia and join ISIS had been charged under foreign incursion laws. The group, that included “ISIS cheerleader” Robert “Musa” Cerantonio, is accused of buying a 7m-long boat for their jihad plot.

They had been held without charge since their arrest after Cairns Magistrate Joe Pinder on Thursday granted the Australian Federal Police extra time to hold the men.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce suggested last week the terrorists were idiots and clearly not “the brains of the operation”.

“It’s like a Monty Python movie and it’s come to an end. Welcome to the constabulary, you clowns,” he said.

Under Foreign Incursion laws it is an offence to prepare to enter a foreign country with an intention to engage in a hostile activity, recruit persons to join an organisation engaged in hostile activities, or to serve in an armed force in a foreign country.

The maximum penalty for a person found guilty of either of the first two of those offences is 25 years imprisonment.

Police are believed to have been monitoring the men for weeks before they left Bendigo.

Victorian Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton has said it was a “serious attempt” by the men, who had their passports cancelled, to leave the country and officers were “investigating the intention to possibly end up in Syria to fight”.

The five men were arrested in Laura, northwest of Cairns, on Tuesday.

They will remain in custody and are scheduled to appear in Cairns Magistrates Court on Monday.