Omar Succarieh jailed for four and a half years for funding fighting in Syria

AN ISLAMIC bookshop owner in Brisbane who sent money abroad to fighters in Syria will spend at least three years behind bars.

Court sketch of Omar Succarieh.

A BRISBANE bookshop owner who sent thousands of dollars overseas because he wanted to see the creation of an Islamic caliphate has been sentenced to four and a half years in jail.

Omar Succarieh, 33, last month pleaded guilty to four foreign incursion offences after the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions dropped more serious terror-related charges against him.

On Wednesday he was sentenced in the Brisbane Supreme Court to four and half years in prison with a non-parole period of three years.

Succarieh sent $US43,700 ($57,000) to his brother, Abraham Succarieh, in 2014 while he was fighting alongside terror group Jabhat al-Nusra. The pair spoke in code to arrange the payments, describing cash and how much he would send in the terms of “sweets” and “kilos”, reported AAP.

Succarieh twice admitted to sending money for Abraham and three other Australians who were fighting in Syria in 2014

Authorities believe his younger brother, Ahmed Succarieh, became Australia’s first suicide bomber in eastern Syria in 2013.

Each offence carries a maximum 10 years in jail.

Succarieh’s solicitor unsuccessfully argued he should be immediately eligible for parole given he has been in custody since his arrest in a series of counter-terrorism raids in Brisbane and Logan in September 2014.

During that time, he also spent 92 days in solitary confinement, partly for his own protection.

The Brisbane Supreme Court heard Succarieh’s isolated cell only had a window that looked out on to a brick wall and being alone caused him to suffer auditory hallucinations.

However, crown prosecutor Lincoln Crowley described Succarieh’s crimes as worse than those of Amin Mohamed, sentenced in September for similar offences to a minimum 3 ½ years in jail.

On Tuesday, Mr Crowley said Succarieh was “a man seeking to have his finger on the pulse” when it came to the conflict in Syria.

“He believed it was his religious duty to do what he could ...,” he said. “The defendant was willing to place his ideals and his religious convictions [above the law].”

Justice Roslyn Atkinson handed down her sentence this morning and noted there was no suggestion Succarieh ever “supported, encouraged or considered” any terrorist acts in Australia.