Convicted terrorist who planned to blow up police headquarters has his sentence REDUCED – convincing a judge that he won’t be a danger to the community
- Farhad Said, 27, had six months shaved off his nine year and six month sentence
- He was one of six arrested in a conspiracy plan to bomb the AFP headquarters
- He was practicing an extremist ideology at the time but has since denounced
- His new minimum sentence in Goulborn Supermax is six years and nine months
A convicted terrorist will spend six months less in prison after convincing a judge he won’t be a danger to the community if he is released.
Farhad Said, 27, who planned to blow up Australian Federal Police (AFP) headquarters in 2014 with five other people, had his sentence shaved at an appeal hearing on Friday.
The group were organising terror plots against the AFP and NSW police- who they dubbed ‘the dogs’- as well as Lithgow’s maximum security prison and the ASIO headquarters, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Farhad Said (pictured), 27, who planned to blow up Australian Federal Police (AFP) headquarters in 2014 with five other people, had his sentence shaved at an appeal hearing on Friday
Police foiled their plans after intercepting their messages over a six-week period before carrying out the arrests.
Said was taken into custody 18 months after the conversations were tapped and was sentenced to nine years and six months in prison in 2017.
The minimum time he must now serve was also reduced to six years and nine months.
In documents shown in court, that were seized by police during a house raid, the men described the scheme as ‘something major’.
‘We are going to fight to Shahada [martyrdom],’ the father-of-one wrote.
Said provided several arguments to the court that he deserved a lighter penalty.
He said he played a limited role in the plans, which were confined to ‘three brief paragraphs’ written on the condemning papers.
The group were organising terror plots against the AFP (pictured) and NSW police- who they dubbed ‘the dogs’- as well as Lithgow’s maximum security Prison and the ASIO headquarters, the Sydney Morning Herald reported
At the time of the plot, Said was following a violent offshoot of Islam- Wahidi Salafism- but he said pleading guilty to the initial charges indicated that he had denounced the extreme ideology.
While cutting the sentence, Chief Justice Clifton said the Bankstown resident had displayed ‘unremarkable or praiseworthy’ behaviour at Goulborn Supermax since his arrest.
Anti-terrorism investigation Operation Appleby in 2014 led to 15 people being charged.