An Australian court sentenced a former Qantas Airways baggage handler wanted on terrorism-related charges in Lebanon to 12 years in prison Friday for publishing a do-it-yourself jihad book on the Internet.
A New South Wales state Supreme Court jury found Belal Khazaal, 39, guilty of making a document that could assist terrorism. The September 2003 book is not linked with a known attack.
The Lebanon-born Sydney resident denied the charge and said the book was never intended to incite terrorist acts.
The 110-page book contained instructions on how to perform terrorist acts such as detonating bombs, shooting down planes from the ground, and assassinating senior U.S. and Australian government officials, including then-President George W. Bush.
Justice Megan Latham said Friday that Khazaal had also been convicted in absentia by Lebanese military courts in 2003 and 2005 on terrorism-related charges.
The charges involved possession of explosives and being part of a terrorist group that plotted against Lebanon. Latham provided the court with scant details of the alleged crimes.
He was sentenced to prison terms of 10 years in 2003 and 15 years in 2005, Latham said.
The judge said she did not take the Lebanese convictions into account when setting a sentence.
She said she found it "unsurprising" that the jury rejected his defense that he never intended to encourage terrorism.
"It beggars belief that a person of average intelligence who has devoted themselves to the study of Islam over some years would fail to recognize the nature of the material," she said.
"It advocated widespread and indiscriminate loss of life, serious injury and serious property damage within the countries identified as enemies of Islam," she added.
Latham sentenced Khazaal to 12 years in prison with no chance of parole for nine years.
The book, written in Arabic, was titled "Provisions of the Rules of Jihad: Short Judicial Rulings and Organizational Instructions for Fighters and Mujahideen Against Infidels." Khazaal compiled the book from a range of Internet sources, his lawyer, George Thomas, told the court at an earlier sentencing hearing.
He faced a maximum possible sentence of 15 years in prison under Australian counterterrorism laws enacted a year after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Lebanon and Australia have an extradition treaty. Australian authorities usually insist that criminals serve any Australian sentence before they are considered for extradition.
The Attorney-General's Department declined Friday to say whether Lebanon had asked for Khazaal's extradition.
"As a matter of long-standing policy, the Australian government does not disclose whether or not an extradition request has been made or received until a person is arrested or brought before a court in relation to the request," it said in a statement.
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