Sporting a bushy black beard and escorted by four officers, he convinced a magistrate this week that a smuggled ­mobile phone found near his jail cell was not his.

FACE-TO-FACE WITH BASSAM HAMZY

Representing himself in the dock, he waved a pen in the air and referred to his scribbled notes, ambitiously peppering his submissions with legal lingo.

Magistrate Geraldine Beattie remarked that Hamzy, who wore an oversized grey suit and black button-up shirt without tie, was more “articulate” when it came to knowledge of the law than other criminals who have represented themselves in court.

Perhaps that’s not surprising given that Hamzy, 39, who went to jail for murder at age 20, has spent a decade poring over legal books in his tiny cell at the country’s most secure prison, Goulburn’s Supermax.

The case, in Goulburn Local Court on Thursday, centred on a small package found by corrective services officers when they raided Hamzy’s cell and an adjoining day room in May last year.

Every item Hamzy had ­inside cell 27 was X-rayed, light fixtures jiggled and toilets checked for stashed contraband.

Nothing seemed untoward until a prison officer, standing on a mini-fridge and then a ladder, discovered a mobile phone, USB stick and SIM cards wrapped in foil stashed in the day room’s roofline.

“This is the mother lode,” one officer remarked in a search warrant video played in court.

Wearing a prison-green tracksuit and with his hands in cuffs, the video showed Hamzy shuffling into the day room where the contraband was laid out on a bench.

“Can you tell me what these items are?” an officer asked him.

Hamzy replied: “Never seen them before.”

Suspicion fell on Hamzy ­because he had been an inmate inside the High Risk Manage­ment Unit cell for eight days and had sole access to the day room. He also had form for keeping mobile phones.

In 2008, he managed to run a lucrative criminal syndicate, making hundreds of phone calls a day from a smuggled phone inside Lithgow jail. In 2016, prison officers found a mobile phone in his Supermax jail cell.

This time, however, Hamzy, who isn’t eligible for parole until 2035, claimed the goods were not his.

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He told the court that there was an image on the USB stick of a man wearing a T-shirt with the words “F — k Islam” on it.

Hamzy, a hard-line Islamic extremist who has converted other inmates to his radical ­beliefs, said this helped prove the mobile phone couldn’t be his. There were also images of people wearing Rebels bikie gang colours, another Supermax inmate and that inmate’s visitors.

“All those items were found together and there is a real possibility that those items don’t belong to me,” Hamzy told Det Sgt Matthew Woods during cross-examination.

Sgt Woods replied: “I don’t accept that. They were found in your cell, Mr Hamzy. A day room that only you have access to other than corrective ­officers.”

Sgt Woods said data extrac­ted from the phone included an outgoing text message stating: “I’m Kon’s neighbour.”

Police said that was a reference to triple killer Kon Georgiou, who was an inmate in the cell next to Hamzy.

“That could’ve been sent by anyone, anyone,” Hamzy said.

“It’s unreasonable to expect me to check these crevices or suspect there is going to be something secreted in the roofline.

“They needed ladders to find that stuff.”

Magistrate Beattie found there was reasonable doubt as to whether Hamzy knew the items were there. She pointed out that she didn’t have ­evidence to show how thoroughly the day room was searched before Hamzy was moved into the cell.

The charge was dismissed. An additional charge of possessing an offensive instrument, ­related to two small pieces of sharpened silver from a pair of prison-issued nail clippers, was also dismissed.

Hamzy must still face a hearing next month for allegedly ­assaulting a prison officer.

When Ms Beattie asked whether a date in July suited him, Hamzy replied: “Yes, your honour, I’m not going anywhere.”