Convicted terrorist could be released in nine months

CONVICTED Victorian terrorist Shane Kent could walk free in nine months after he was sentenced yesterday for being a member of a Melbourne terror cell and producing a violent jihadist propaganda video.

CONVICTED Victorian terrorist Shane Kent could walk free in nine months after he was sentenced yesterday for being a member of a Melbourne terror cell and producing a violent jihadist propaganda video.

Supreme Court judge Bernard Bongiorno ordered the 32-year-old former forklift driver, who undertook military training at al-Qaida's al-Farooq terrorist camp in Afghanistan, serve a maximum of five years' jail and a minimum of three years and nine months.

Kent will be eligible for parole in April as he has already served just over three years in the state's most secure prison unit, the Acacia Unit at Barwon Prison, since his arrest in 2004.

The father of three pleaded guilty last month to one count of being a member of a terrorist organisation and one reduced count of recklessly making a document -- the video -- connected with preparing a terrorist act. He was on the verge of a retrial after a jury last year was unable to reach a verdict on whether he belonged to the Melbourne terror cell.

Defence lawyers told Kent's plea hearing last month their client was not really committed to terrorist ideology and was more of a "barracker" for the group.

They also argued he was suffering from a serious depressive illness at the time he was a member of the group, from July 2004 to November 2005, and he was "psychologically vulnerable".

This in turn affected his moral culpability for his crimes.

But Justice Bongiorno rejected these submissions, saying they could be given "very little weight" in sentencing because his offending was not impulsive and occurred over a substantial period of time.

"He had ample opportunity to reflect on his membership of the jemaah (terror group) and appreciate the consequences of it," he said. "I am not prepared to accept, on the material proffered, that he has abandoned the cause of violent jihad.

"There is no admissible evidence of his having done so, or of his being genuinely contrite for what he did."

Justice Bongiorno also dismissed arguments by defence counsel John O'Sullivan that Kent had only made the seven-minute introduction for the jihadist video and was unaware of the intention of the video.

The chilling footage -- shown previously to the court in Kent's plea hearing -- included jihadist sermons in Arabic, pictures of Osama Bin Laden, a call to arms against the "armies of Bush, the Jews, the Christians" and an image of a dead young man with a red rose next to it, saying "in memory of our martyred brethren". It was uploaded on to the At-Tibyan website, which had connections to al-Qa'ida.

"The persons in the video, the general tenor of it and the purpose for which it was being made was obvious enough from the material which Kent worked upon," the judge said.

Justice Bongiorno also questioned Kent's expression of remorse through his guilty plea.

However, he did take into account the psychological impact of keeping Kent in the Acacia Unit and questioned the need for such onerous conditions.