Smiling plotter: Amin Nowroz ecstatic as judge sentences him over terror plot

A terrorist plotter and former boxer has been sentenced to prison - but he was all smiles as he learned his fate in a Sydney court on Monday.

A would-be terrorist, who turned his back on the Islamic State, has fallen to his knees in prayer with a smile on his face, after learning he will be eligible for parole in less than a year.

Nowroz Amin was stopped at Sydney Airport, on his way to Bangladesh, with camouflage pants, martial arts training equipment and terrorism publications on USB sticks.

Two years later, in 2018, police swooped on his Western Sydney home and bundled him into custody on a charge of preparing to commit a terrorist act.

He was facing a maximum life in prison but the NSW Supreme Court found the young former boxer had renounced his support for the terrorist organisation.

Justice Peter Garling handed Amin five years, four months in prison with his first parole date in June 2022.

Amin, appearing on a videolink from Goulburn’s high risk prison, jumped to his feet before a massive smile spread across his face as soon as the judge left the court.

Nowroz Amin being arrested in 2018 two years after attempting to board a flight to Bangladesh.

He instantly fell to his knees in the tiny video link room and rocked back and forward in prayer before pacing around muttering “God is great” in Arabic, his hands pressed against his cheeks.

Amin had pleaded guilty to preparing for a terror attack but insisted he was never going to launch a jihad in Australia.

His focus had always been on Bangladesh, his parents’ homeland, where conservative Muslim minorities had endured government crackdowns, the court found.

Amin had told his questioners, after his arrest, he had two dozen terrorist publications but insisted it was so he could talk his cousin in Bangladesh out of supporting IS.

Crown Prosecutors produced messages from Amin that hinted he had nefarious plans for Sydney.

26-year-old Nowroz Amin (blue singlet) during an amatuer boxing match in 2011.

“Things in Australia are going to get very hot soon, God willing,” Amin wrote to a friend.

Amin, under questioning from terror investigators, agreed his messages implied he was seeking out expertise on bomb making but that was never his intent in Australia.

But Justice Garling concluded the court hadn’t proved he intended to attack Australia.

The court had heard, at a sentencing hearing late last month, Amin had been radicalised in the time after September 11, 2001.

Muslims across the west had been left alienated and marginalised by anti-Islamic sentiment as Amin came of age in Sydney’s west.

His barrister said he became a “lost soul”.

But now, the judge said, he had renounced his extremist path.

“I’m satisfied he has renounced, or is on his way to renouncing the extremist IS ideology,” Justice Garling said.

Amin’s sentence has been backdated to his arrest in 2018.