Terrorist sympathiser Khodr Taha slapped with new social media ban

THE man who tweeted death threats to Victoria Police and urged Islamic State to behead captives is back in court for logging back on to social media.

Khodr Moustafa Taha

A TERRORIST sympathiser who tweeted death threats to police and urged Islamic State to behead captives has breached his social media ban.

Khodr Moustafa Taha, 36, was back in court on Thursday and put on new community corrections order after breaking his last one.

In May he was banned from using social media for two years after he pleaded guilty to 10 charges, including using a carriage service to threaten.

Taha was handed the original order following a Twitter rant that condoned terrorist behaviour and was racist, misogynistic and threatening.

“An officer will die,” he tweeted to Victoria Police.

Another tweet urged Islamic State to behead captives.

“As soon as you get them, execute them, film it, send it to the parents of the victim,” the tweet read.

He appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court today and admitted to breaching the social media ban, saying it was a “mistake”.

He also failed to attend drug testing and failed to report for unpaid community work.

He accessed Tumblr twice and a blog and Instagram once while he was banned.

Deputy Chief Magistrate Jelena Popovic said Taha had been making too many mistakes and handed him a new order, which will restart the two-year ban.

“That’s essentially penalty for what you did, for the mistake you made,” Ms Popovic told Taha.

She also fined him $300 for the breach.

Ms Popovic sentenced Taha to the order, instead of jail, in May.

He has also jostled with the media and belted a news photographer and tossed coffee on a television reporter during previous court hearings.

Ms Popovic said in May there was a causal connection between his offending and a drug-induced psychosis.

She also noted that he had never engaged in any acts of terrorism, or behaviour that indicated he intended to.

In the court on Thursday, Sergeant Mark Higginbotham said police had investigated accounts linked to Taha’s original offending, and none of them had been accessed.

The court was told Taha had failed three times to show up to work arrangements under his order, because train and bus services did not run early enough on a Sunday.

Defence lawyer Kimani Boden said the breach relating to drug testing had come about because Taha had not been able to produce a urine sample on some occasions.

He was asked to provide the sample in front of female staff. “That is what causes his embarrassment and difficulty,” Mr Boden said.

Ms Popovic noted Taha had largely complied with the original order.

Taha did not comment as he left court.