Jury delivers Mallah verdict

SYDNEY - The prosecution claimed Zaky Mallah planned to murder government officers in a suicide attack, in revenge for being denied a passport.

The defence argued the 21-year-old never intended to kill anybody; he was merely a publicity-hungry orphan who boasted about terrorism to generate media attention.

After a two week trial, a NSW Supreme Court jury accepted the defence's explanation of Mallah's activities, finding him not guilty of two charges of preparing for a terrorist act.

However, he was convicted of threatening to kill a Commonwealth officer after the court accepted his guilty plea late in the trial.

Mallah, a supermarket shelf stacker from Condell Park in Sydney's south-west, was the first person in Australia charged under the Howard government's new anti-terrorism legislation.

He was also the first to be acquitted by a jury in the first terrorism trial conducted in NSW.

Perth's Jack Roche was the first person in Australia convicted under the new laws, pleading guilty midway through his trial last year to plotting with al-Qaeda to blow up Canberra's Israeli embassy.

The 50-year-old was jailed for nine years.

Mallah, born in Australia to Lebanese parents, still faces up to seven years in jail, but has escaped a possible life sentence under the two more serious charges.

His solicitor, Adam Houda, today told journalists the jury's verdict demonstrated how effectively the Australian criminal justice system could work.

The Crown alleged Mallah planned to storm the Sydney offices of either ASIO or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in late 2003, taking hostages and shooting staff.

Mallah was allegedly seeking revenge after DFAT denied him a passport on ASIO advice in June 2002.

DFAT's refusal meant Mallah could not travel to Lebanon to meet his prospective bride or make a pilgrimage to Mecca.

"He developed a hostility to that department and ASIO," Crown Prosecutor Desmond Fagan SC told the court.

The jury heard that when police raided Mallah's unit in September 2003, they found a .22 rifle which the Crown alleged was bought in preparation for a terror strike.

The trial also heard Mallah negotiated to sell a statement, photographs and videotape for A$3,000 ($3264) to an undercover detective posing as a freelance journalist.

The Crown alleged Mallah believed he would die in his planned attack and made the tape to deliver his "final message".

The jury disagreed, finding Mallah's purchase of the rifle and dealings with the "journalist" were not acts in preparation for terrorism.

Mallah admitted telling the undercover detective he planned to kill at least two government officers as payback after two ASIO agents interrogated him in the wake of the raid.

But defence barrister Phillip Boulten SC asserted his client never intended to kill ASIO or DFAT staff.

Mallah's parents died when he was a teenager and he spiralled into depression when he was denied a passport, Mr Boulten told the court.

Then the media began using him as a spokesman for disaffected Islamic youth, and he was seduced by the attention.

"He was receiving some relief from his depressed state from the buzz that the media was finding him attractive," Mr Boulten said.

Taking the stand in his own defence, Mallah said he wanted to generate publicity by being the first in Australia to be charged under the tough new anti-terrorism laws.

"I set myself up on terrorism charges on purpose," he told the court.

"I would get publicity to get my point of view across."

He had to make his story sound good when he was talking to the journalist to get a higher price for his video, he said.

Mallah was not a terrorist, Mr Boulten told the jury, but "a young dreamer, dreaming as it were of his moment in the spotlight".

He may have achieved his dream, but it could cost Mallah years behind bars.

- AAP