Convicted terrorist ‘deradicalised’, expert says

A terror expert has slammed a risk assessment used to keep Abdul Nacer Benbrika in prison, while a forensic psychologist has backed it.

Terror suspect and Muslim cleric Abdul Naser Benbrika is escorted from the Victorian Supreme Court in Melbourne, after his conviction and sentencing on terrorism charges.

An international expert on countering violent extremism has ­denounced an assessment tool used to keep convicted terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika in prison beyond his original sentence and believes he is “deradicalised”.

Anne Speckhard, director of global operations at the Inter­national Centre for the Study of Violent Extremism, said the ­assessment tool known as VERA-2R was only useful to ­people with little to no understanding of Islam and the militant Jihadist culture.

“This tool has not been validated so we don’t know it measures what it says it measures. The VERA just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny,” Dr Speckhard told the Victorian Supreme Court during a challenge to his continued ­detention.

The assessment tool was used to deem Benbrika an ongoing risk in applications for a continued ­detention order which forced him to spend a further three years in prison after serving 15.

Dr Speckhard acknowledged there was a “risk” Benrika could fall back into the extremist ideology that saw him convicted for plotting attacks on Australian monuments in the early 2000s but, after spending 18 hours with him over five sessions in March, she said she did not believe he would. “He is definitely afraid of going back to prison so he doesn’t want to do anything that would be construed as violating a court order,” she said.

“He got so fully convinced … that even when extreme ­injustices are being done he cannot act against Australia or ­encourage anyone else to act against Australia.

“(Benbrika) is totally convinced … violent actions, militant Jihadist actions are prohibited to him. He was already deradicalised. Could he, left un-mentored, revert? Maybe, but I doubt it.”

Later, forensic psychologist Chelsey Dewson gave evidence. She assessed Benbrika as a risk to community safety in 2020 during proceedings for his continuing detention order.

Dr Dewson said while she agreed a report by academic Emily Corner found VERA-2R lacked an “empirical foundation”, she continued to believe using the tool to assess risk was better than using “unstructured” assessments. “It still falls within the heading of a structured professional judgment tool, and they are better than unstructured. (It is) a systematic framework to review the evidence. It increases the validity of the outcome,” she said.

Dr Dewson also told the court use of the tool ensured a range of relevant factors were assessed and it created a framework which practitioners could use with a ­degree of consistency.

Benbrika is challenging a continuing detention order made against him that is due to lapse in December.

The trial continues.