KEY POINTS:
Abdul Nacer Benbrika talked about inflicting maximum damage and killing thousands of non-believers.
He also spoke of a plot to blow up the Melbourne Cricket Ground when it was packed with almost 100,000 fans on AFL grand final day.
But if you listen to legal defenders, Australia's first convicted terrorist leader was a devoted Muslim, father and husband who couldn't organise a booze-up in a brewery, let alone a terrorist attack.
The 48-year-old cleric has been painted in court as a father figure to young Muslims, who looked up to him and sought his guidance during religious classes at mosques in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
As his barrister Remy van de Wiel QC put it, while he was afforded respect, Benbrika was also seen as an old-fashioned man who was not really very clever.
But in finding him guilty of intentionally directing the activities of a terrorist organisation and of being a member of a terrorist group, a jury decided that he was anything but a benign force in the community.
Five of his devotees were convicted of being members of a home-grown terrorist cell. Four others were aquitted.
The Algerian-born cleric, aircraft engineer and father of seven came to Australia in 1989.
During his trial, the jury was told Benbrika had advised his followers that it was "permissible to kill women, children and the aged". He also said the group needed to kill at least 1000 non-believers to make the Australian Government withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. In August 2005, a month after the London bombings which killed 52 people, Benbrika praised al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
But was this really a man capable of leading terrorist attacks in Australia? The prosecution produced evidence from a man who claimed Benbrika was in charge of a plot to blow up the McG on grand final day in 2005, evidence of group members pledging their loyalty to Benbrika, and evidence of conversations during which he discussed terrorism.
James Montgomery QC, a barrister for Benbrika's co-accused Hany Taha, said: "You may well have formed the view that Mr Benbrika couldn't lead ants to sugar, couldn't organise a booze-up in a brewery ... let alone run a terrorist organisation."
- AAP
