Terror cell member Shane Kent to walk free after nine months

SHANE Kent has been sentenced to a maximum of five years' jail for being a member of a terror cell and helping make a jihad video.

FORMER forklift driver Shane Kent has been sentenced to a maximum of five years' jail for being a member of Melbourne terror cell and helping make a violent jihadist propaganda video.

But the 32-year-old will be free in nine months after spending more than three years in jail on remand since his arrest in 2004.

Mr Kent pleaded guilty in July 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 terror cell.

Prosecutors told the Victorian Supreme Court plea hearing for Shane Kent last month that the video he helped create glorified the role of Muslim jihads and encouraged viewers to kill in the name of Islam and was placed on a website supporting al-Qa'ida.

They said Mr Kent created the opening scenes of the video, which featured calming cascading water with the logo of extremist publisher At-Tibyan - two AK-47 rifles crossed over the Koran - before a tribute montage of “household names of terrorism”.

According to prosecutors, the video was uploaded on the At-Tibyan website, which “purported virtues and justification for jihad actions as practised by al-Qa'ida” and its seven-minute introduction was created by Kent.

His lawyer, John Champion SC, told the plea hearing his client should not go back to prison for his offences because he had already served more than three years in remand jail since his arrest in 2004.

Mr Champion said Kent did basic military training at an alleged al-Qa'ida camp in Afghanistan in 2001 but did not fight and was a member of the Melbourne terror cell but did not “positively act to further the objectives of the group”.

“He has reached a point where the time he has served is sufficient in the circumstances,” Mr Champion said. “Sending someone back into prison under these circumstances for six months cannot be justified.”

But prosecutor Lesley Taylor told the plea hearing Kent was not a peripheral figure within a terror cell.

“From the very beginning to the very end, Kent showed his commitment to the terror organisation and showed his commitment to violent jihad,” she said.

She told the hearing Kent was in fact “front and centre” of the terror organisation and should be jailed for his role.

“This evidence is not the evidence of a man who wavered in his commitment to violent jihad,” Ms Taylor said.

“The crown does maintain in its submission that any sentence which resulted in an immediate release of the prisoner would be manifestly inadequate.”