Accused ISIS fighter home to face terrorism charges

An Australian claiming to have gone to Syria as an aid worker but accused of being a frontline fighter has returned to Australia under heavy guard.

Australian Mohamed Zuhbi is escorted under guard through Melbourne Airport after returning from Turkey on Saturday.

An Australian claiming to have gone to Syria as an aid worker but accused of being a frontline fighter for Islamic State has been returned to Australia under heavy guard to face terrorism charges.

Mohamed Zuhbi arrived in Melbourne on Saturday on a flight from Turkey, where he had spent 18 months in jail for allegedly being a member of a terrorist organisation.

The former Sydney street preacher, who once praised Islamic State members as “freedom fighters”, is expected to be charged with a string of serious terrorism offences. The 30 year old will remain in a Victoria corrections quarantine centre until a NSW Police extradition hearing on May 21.

The most serious charge Mr Zuhbi faces is giving support to a terrorist organisation, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 25 years’ jail.

Mr Zuhbi is also wanted by the FBI over allegations that he helped two young Americans join ISIS and conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country.

Counter Terrorism Operations police commander Stephen Dametto said the arrest was the result of the “unwavering” efforts of law enforcement.

Mr Zuhbi travelled from Sydney to Turkey in 2013 before making his way to Syria, where he allegedly organised the travel of foreign terrorist fighters to support Islamic State and was actively involved in frontline operations.

His Australian bank accounts were frozen in 2014.

Mr Zuhbi has claimed in the past that he went to Syria for ­humanitarian work, helping ­orphaned children and widows.

However, he reportedly confessed to Turkish authorities that he worked for Islamic State in the group’s Syrian de facto capital, Raqqa, as a translator and communications official, after undergoing military training.

It is understood the warrant for Mr Zuhbi’s arrest does not include any evidence from Turkey.

“We won’t be relying specifically on that material gathered by Turkish authorities,” NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Walton said on Sunday.

Mr Zuhbi was a prominent supporter of Islamic State in the Australian media, claiming “they’re simply freedom fighters fighting for the state of Islam”.

“I believe that they are the ­future of Syria and I believe that they’re the future of the Islamic empire to come,” he told SBS in 2014 from Turkey. “I have full conviction that at the rate that they’re going, they will indeed establish justice and establish the Koran of Islam in the land.”

In a social media post, Mr Zuhbi supported the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby, who was mowed down by a car, then stabbed and hacked to death on a London street by Islamic fanatics in May 2013.

“The death of Lee Rigby wasn’t murder, it was his punishment … for his crimes against Islam,” he wrote. “If the governments won’t hold their criminal soldiers responsible for the atrocities caused in our countries, the Muslims will.”

Mr Zuhbi was part of a Sydney Islamic group known as Street Dawah, which also included ­Australian Yusuf Ali (born Tyler Casey), killed in Syria with his wife Amira Karroum.

As Islamic State crumbled in a series of military defeats, Mr Zuhbi reportedly settled in northwest Syria and married a local woman, with whom he had four children. But he was arrested in 2019 and sent for trial in Turkey.

Most of the estimated 200 Australians who went to fight for ISIS are either dead or held in custody in Turkey, but a handful are ­believed to be at large or to have slipped back into Australia.

Assistant Commissioner Walton said authorities continued to hunt Australians who went overseas to fight for ISIS.

“Whilst we have some people overseas, they remain suspects for us, and we work diligently here across the country to ensure if someone does put them on a plane they’re received and managed as this chap has been as he arrived in Melbourne,” he said.