Notorious terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika organised funding for radical preacher Wisam Haddad's hate-speech trial

Australia Broadcast Center

08-05-2025

Notorious Australian terrorist leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika organised funding for radical Sydney preacher Wisam Haddad's hate-speech legal battle against Australia's peak Jewish body.
The revelation is contained in a Victorian Supreme Court decision, published last week, handing a terrorism supervision order to Benbrika, in part because of his associations with Mr Haddad.
Benbrika, who spent 18 years in jail for leading a terrorism cell, met last December with Mr Haddad, who was revealed by Four Corners last month as the spiritual leader of Sydney's pro-Islamic State (IS) network.
According to the court judgement, Benbrika made arrangements after their meeting to help fund Mr Haddad's legal battle against the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
The group is suing him for racial vilification in the Federal Court over a series of antisemitic lectures at his radical prayer centre, Al Madina Dawah Centre.
The Supreme Court heard the Australian Federal Police (AFP) was surveilling Benbrika, 65, a patriarch of Australian jihadism, when he travelled from Melbourne to meet with Mr Haddad, 45, in Sydney.
The court has not revealed what was said between the two jihadist clerics during the meeting, which took place just days after limits on Benbrika's freedom were removed.
But their interaction, along with Benbrika's contact with two other extremists, convinced a Supreme Court judge that he posed an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence.
Justice James Elliott last month agreed to a federal government bid to extend a community supervision order against Benbrika, curtailing his freedoms and forcing him to continue to participate in a deradicalisation program.
His meeting with Mr Haddad was a clear warning sign for authorities, according to John Coyne, a former AFP officer who was involved in the 2005 investigation that led to Benbrika's conviction, Operation Pendennis.
"For him, as one of his first acts [after his restrictions were eased], to make contact with someone who is a renowned firebrand speaker in terms of extremist Islam is extraordinary," said Dr Coyne, who is now the director of national security programs at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
"It is not the behaviour of someone who has been deradicalised."
Authorities have for years expressed concerns about Benbrika's ability to influence others who have taken up his cause for violent jihad, even from jail.
The Algerian-born man was released from jail in December 2023 after serving a 15-year sentence for being the spiritual leader to a terrorism cell that plotted attacks on high-profile targets in Melbourne and Sydney.
A court had extended that jail term by three years, under a continuing detention order, after hearing he remained a father figure to Australian jihadists from behind bars.
When Benbrika was freed, he was placed on a one-year supervision order in the community.
The order was extended on an interim basis in December 2024, but a judge removed many of his conditions — including a curfew, electronic monitoring and restrictions on travel and financial transactions.
Within days, he travelled to Sydney to meet with Mr Haddad, according to the Victorian Supreme Court judgement published last week.
A forensic psychiatrist found that Benbrika's associations with Mr Haddad and two other extremists increased the risk of the convicted terrorist being encouraged, or encouraging others, to violent extremism, the court heard.
According to the psychologist's expert report, the "evidence [of the associations] was a clear risk factor for the commission of a serious [terrorism] offence", Justice Elliot said.
Mr Haddad has long been a follower of Benbrika, describing him as a sheikh teaching true Islam.
The latest Supreme Court ruling provides further evidence of Mr Haddad's work with jihadist leaders to re-energise Australia's pro-IS network, and indicates just how dangerous authorities consider him to be.
A Four Corners investigation last month revealed Mr Haddad's close ties to global terrorist leaders and links to teenage followers accused of terrorism and hate crimes.
A former ASIO spy, codenamed Marcus, told Four Corners he infiltrated Mr Haddad's network of prayer centres and covert groups, witnessing how young people were indoctrinated into supporting IS.
Mr Haddad has never been charged with a terrorism-related offence, despite his longstanding influence and notoriety.
He has for more than two decades been at the centre of a network of terrorists, including slain Australian IS fighter Khaled Sharrouf, who was previously jailed for being a member of Benbrika's cell.
Sharrouf, a close friend of Mr Haddad, shocked the world during the Syrian war by posting a photo of his young son holding a severed head.
Authorities have long struggled to contain Mr Haddad's influence, securing court orders banning several convicted terrorists from associating with him, and forbidding him from owning weapons.
Benbrika is not banned from associating with Mr Haddad.
The Supreme Court judgement also reveals Benbrika is considering opening his own Islamic centre in Melbourne.
Members of Benbrika's community encouraged him to open the centre, after he was excluded late last year from a mosque he was attending, the court heard.
In handing down the extended supervision order (ESO), Justice Elliot found there was a "real possibility" that Benbrika would re-assume a religious leadership role and encourage others to acts of terrorism .
"Benbrika is seen as a figure of religious authority and is routinely sought out for religious advice by other members of his community," the judge said.
"There remains a risk of Benbrika radicalising or encouraging others to religious-inspired violence, and in doing so committing a serious [terrorism] offence," he said.
But the judge significantly relaxed the conditions of the supervision order.
He found Benbrika had recently embraced a non-violent ideology, but it "remains fragile" and he still "struggled" to denounce IS and violent jihad.
The court heard a March 2025 psychological report concluded Benbrika was not "dangerous or still heavily radicalised", but was "still not convinced … that [the Islamic State terrorist group] should receive no defence".
The judge also highlighted Benbrika's contact with other extremists, including in phone calls in which he urged them to avoid unnamed topics because of surveillance.
The AFP monitored Benbrika acting as a religious mentor in multiple meetings with Joshua Clavell, a radical convert who was jailed over a violent stand-off with counterterrorism police in 2019.
The pair discussed topics including monitoring, infidels and bullets, but the judge said a psychologist believed Benbrika was "acting as a moderating influence" on Clavell.
Benbrika also spoke at least three times with one of his co-offenders in the Pendennis terrorism plot, Aimen Joud, after a prohibition on their association lapsed late last year.
Under the new ESO, which expires in November, Benbrika is banned from associating with people convicted or accused of terrorism offences, as well as a number of named extremists.
Benbrika is also required to continue to participate in a deradicalisation program and psychological treatment, and faces restrictions on his use of the internet, phones and devices.
The federal government has fought a series of protracted and controversial legal battles against Benbrika for several years.
Benbrika won a High Court bid to have his Australian citizenship restored in 2023.
And in 2022, the national security watchdog was scathing of the Home Affairs department for deliberately withholding from Benbrika's legal team a report that cast doubt on the reliability of a tool used to predict his future risk.
Mr Haddad did not respond to questions from the ABC.
He previously said he denied any suggestion he was involved in or associated with terrorism, and he reserved his rights against the ABC.