First Aussie charged under foreign fighter IS laws has jail sentence for money laundering cut
Belal Betka made history as the first person charged for being a foreign fighter with the Islamic State but has won a minor reduction in prison time for an unrelated money laundering sentence.
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The first Australian to be charged under foreign fighter laws has had a small fraction shaved off his prison term for an unrelated $18 million money laundering scheme.
Belal Betka in 2017 became the first Australian charged under foreign fighter laws, two years after travelling to Syria to join the Islamic State.
He would ultimately plead guilty to engaging in hostile activity in a foreign country but claimed he joined the Islamic State for humanitarian reasons.
However before he was sentenced for his jaunt in the terror state, Betka and two other men were among a larger group jailed for an “unsophisticated” laundering scheme which was unrelated to Betka’s foreign fighter charge.
Standover man Ahmed Hawchar, debt-riddled gambler Zouheir Ghazaoui and Betka deposited cash — in bundles just under $10,000 — into various bank accounts across Sydney.
Hawchar and Ghazaoui have never been charged with any terror related offence.
The $10,000 amount was designed to fly under the radar of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.
Hawchar and Ghazaoui pleaded guilty to dealing with money to the value of $100,000 intending it would be an instrument of crime and were given just over three years each in prison with non-parole periods of just less than two years.
Betka pleaded guilty to dealing with $1,000,000 or more and was sentenced to six years and nine months imprisonment with a non-parole period of four years.
The sentencing judge found he had deposited more than $4,000,000 himself in 558 deposits over five months in 2017.
All up the syndicate, which included other men, banked more than $18 million.
All three appealed, saying the judge did not properly appreciate the value of their guilty pleas.
Ghazaoui told the court the pandemic has put restrictions on visitation and he wants to reunite with his family and live a “conventional lifestyle”.
“He says without family visits he has nothing to look forward to and he struggles daily with the reality of not being able to support his wife and children because of the poor choice he made in committing the money laundering offences,” Justice Elizabeth Fullerton of the Court of Criminal Appeal wrote on Wednesday.
Hawchar said his wife was sick and could not get surgery until her husband was released from prison.
The Court of Criminal Appeal reduced each sentence but only slightly.
Ghazaoui will be released on parole in January next year and Hawchar the following month.
Betka will be eligible for parole one week before Christmas 2021.
The non-parole period for his terror offence will expire in March 2021 after the NSW Supreme Court, sentencing him in February, concluded he had no extremist views and had not fought in battle.
Betka claimed he left the Islamic State after being told he had to fight, and because he disliked their treatment of civilians.