A sentence condemning an Islamic State-inspired terrorist to live out his 20s, 30s and 40s in jail may be severe and stern but not unreasonable, an appeal court has found.
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Raban Alou, 22, sourced the loaded gun used by 15-year-old Farhad Jabar to kill NSW Police accountant Curtis Cheng outside the force's state headquarters in October 2015.
He appealed his sentence of 44 years with a minimum of 33 years on nine grounds, including that the head jail term was manifestly excessive and his youth was not properly taken into account.
Alou told the Court of Criminal Appeal in June he had changed in NSW's supermax prison, no longer supported IS and would support al-Qaeda only "if I do see something good in them".
Chief Justice Tom Bathurst rejected the appeal entirely, saying Alou had failed to show the sentencing judge had made an error of law.
"The sentence in my view, although a stern one, could not be said to be unreasonable or plainly unjust," he said.
"(Alou) participated in the planning of a terrorist act, obtained a weapon for its commission and if he did not procure a juvenile to commit the act, (he) certainly encouraged him to do so.
"The result was that an innocent civilian employee of the NSW Police Department was murdered in the furtherance of a cause abhorrent to most right-thinking members of the community."
Justice Derek Price also rejected the appeal on all grounds, saying the sentencing judge was right to give more weight to deterring further terrorism rather than Alou's youth.
He said a terrorist attack could kill or badly injure many innocents.
"One only has to consider the death and destruction caused by the truck driver in Nice on August 19, 2016 or by the gunman in Christchurch on March 15, 2019," he said.
"The potential for such terrible consequences will not usually be the case in a single count of murder.
"The sentence is a severe one but it is not manifestly excessive."
Dissenting judge Justice Natalie Adams said the head sentence was "just too high" for aiding and abetting a terrorist murder, noting Alou received the longest non-parole period and equal-longest head sentence for any offender for a single offence in NSW since 2008.
Australian Associated Press
