Zaky Mallah is an
Australian
Australian(s) may refer to:
Australia
* Australia, a country
* Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia
** European Australians
** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists
** Aboriginal A ...
who pleaded guilty to threatening to kill officers of ASIO or DFAT.
[
] In 2011 Mallah travelled to Syria to film the
Syrian Civil War, declaring himself in support of the
Free Syrian Army. In 2015 he was controversially allowed to ask a question on the ABC program Q&A, leading then
Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbott
Anthony John Abbott (; born 4 November 1957) is a former Australian politician who served as the 28th prime minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
Abbott was born in Londo ...
to question "Which side is the ABC on"?
First Australian charged under its anti-terrorism act
In 2003, when he was nineteen, Mallah was the first to be arrested
[
] under then-recently enacted amendments to Australia's federal Criminal Code Act which introduced specific offences for terrorism-related acts. Mallah spent two years in
Goulburn Correctional Centre
The Goulburn Correctional Centre, (also known as The Circle) is an Australian supermaximum security prison for males. It is located in Goulburn, New South Wales, three kilometres north-east of the central business district. The facility is operat ...
subject to
solitary confinement and a 22-hour lockdown while he awaited trial.
[
]
The circumstances of the case were that after being refused a passport, Mallah appealed through a lawyer to the
Administrative Appeals Tribunal
The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) is an Australian tribunal that conducts independent merits review of administrative decisions made under Commonwealth laws of the Australian Government. The AAT review decisions made by Australian Gover ...
. Both Mallah and his lawyer were barred from viewing the evidence supporting the passport refusal, which was upheld. Mallah then purchased a rifle and ammunition, prepared his will and made a video to be played after he died. Mallah bragged about this and his claims were eventually brought up on the
Alan Jones radio program. The Australian newspaper then paid him $500 for an interview. The Counter Terrorist Command, also aware of the threats, sent an undercover officer posing as a freelance journalist to do another interview. This undercover officer offered Mallah $5,000 if he would hold everyone hostage at
ASIO
''Asio'' is a genus of typical owls, or true owls, in the family Strigidae. This group has representatives over most of the planet, and the short-eared owl is one of the most widespread of all bird species, breeding in Europe, Asia, North and ...
headquarters and give the "journalist" the scoop.
[
]
Entrapment of a suspect in Australia is legal if the police obtain a "controlled operations authority certificate." However, the police did not get a certificate so the entrapment was illegal.
[
] At his trial Justice James Wood allowed the entrapment into evidence. Wood criticized the media for accepting claims as credible and giving them undue prominence in newspapers.
At his trial, the jury found Mallah not guilty of 2 counts of "committing an act in preparation for or in the planning of a terrorist act, contrary to s.101.6(1)". Justice Wood stated that "the prisoner was an idiosyncratic, and embittered young man, who was to all intents something of a loner, without significant prospects of advancing himself. While I accept that the Prisoner enjoyed posing as a potential martyr, and may from time to time, in his own imagination, have contemplated creating a siege and taking the lives of others, I am satisfied that in his more rational moments he lacked any genuine intention of doing so."
Mallah was also charged with "making a threat to cause serious harm to a third party: (s.147.2)", referring to the verbal threats made to the undercover officer. He was sentenced to two and a half years jail.
[
]
In September 2005, his jail term was extended by 6 weeks for assaulting a prison officer.
Dismissal from ANZ Stadium
In 2011 Mallah was employed by ANZ Stadium
ANZ may refer to:
People
* Anz (musician), a British DJ and electronic musician
Banks
* ANZ (bank), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, the fourth-largest bank in Australia
** ANZ Bank New Zealand, the largest bank in New Zealand
* ...
until he was fired for broadcasting a video of non-public areas of the Stadium on YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
.[
]
The videos included a shot of a private dining room, for VIPs, and a shot of the kitchen, where he worked. ANZ Stadium officials stated that the broadcast breached his employment conditions. Mallah asserted that his firing was triggered by his employers learning that he had once been charged under the anti-terrorism act.
Observing the Syrian civil war
In 2011, following uprisings that were part of the Arab Spring
The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and econo ...
, Mallah travelled to Syria during the Syrian civil war.[
Mallah has asserted that he and all the other Australians he met in Syria were filling non-combat roles, which would not violate Australian law.
While in Syria Mallah uploaded videos he made to Facebook, some of which were republished by mainstream Australian news sources.][
]
''The Australian
''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
'' published a profile of Mallah, where he described himself as engaging in a ''"Jihad of Peace"''.[
]
They quoted Mallah describing how seeing his guide shot by a sniper filled him with a new appreciation for the freedoms found in Australian society.
Mallah says he does not support ISIS
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...
, that he "hates ISIS" and supported the Free Syrian Army.
Return to Australia
In December 2012, after returning from Syria, ''The Australian
''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
'' reported Mallah claimed he had received death threats from individuals who doubted his truthfulness, and suspected he was a covert employee of Australian security agencies.[
]
In January 2013, Mallah was a member of a panel interviewed by ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
journalist Stephanie Smail.[
]
According to Smail, Mallah started the Free Syria Army Australia group.
In May 2013 Mallah published a guideline for other Australians considering volunteering to help Muslims in war zones on how they could do so, without violating provisions in the anti-terrorism act that barred Australians from fighting in foreign wars.[
According to the ]News.com.au
news.com.au is an Australian website owned by News Corp Australia. It had 9.6 million unique readers in April 2019 and covers national and international news, lifestyle, travel, entertainment, technology, finance, and sport.
Staff
The organiza ...
, Mallah's analysis was that various kinds of non-violent assistance in war zones would not violate Australian law.[
Mallah asserted treating wounded fighters would not violate Australian law; neither would preparing or serving rations, or carrying flags.
Mallah claimed that individuals killed while aiding fighters would be martyrs entitled to the same after-life benefits an actual fighter is promised.
His guideline also included advice for volunteers who wanted to avoid risking their own lives.
'']Zee News
Zee News is an Indian Hindi-language news channel owned by Subhash Chandra's Essel Group. It launched on 27 August 1999 and is the flagship channel of the Zee Media Corporation.
The channel has been involved in several controversies and ha ...
'' reported on 18 May 2013 that Mallah had been charged under the anti-terrorism act a second time for broadcasting the video.[
]
Appearance on ABC Q&A
Mallah appeared on Q&A on 22 June 2015, putting a pre-approved question to LNP member Steven Ciobo
Steven Michele Ciobo ( ) (born 29 May 1974) is a retired Australian politician who represented the Division of Moncrieff in the House of Representatives from the 2001 federal election until his retirement at the 2019 election. He was a membe ...
.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott
Anthony John Abbott (; born 4 November 1957) is a former Australian politician who served as the 28th prime minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
Abbott was born in Londo ...
strongly criticised the ABC for "giving Mallah a platform" saying that "heads should roll". He asked "Which side is the ABC on?" and said that the ABC "betrayed" Australia.
Mallah went on to debate Waleed Aly
Waleed Aly (born 15 August 1978) is an Australian journalist, academic, and lawyer.
Aly is a lecturer in politics at Monash University working in their Global Terrorism Research Centre, and a co-host of Network Ten's news and current affairs ...
on '' The Project'' and published an opinion piece in The Guardian's Comment is free
TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and ''Guardian Unlimited'', is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'', ...
. Mallah argued that young Muslims in Australia feel vilified by a government "looking for votes" and that the citizenship proposal is a "very dangerous step" that moves Australia towards "an authoritarian system." Mallah argued that "ASIO and counter-terrorism police" benefit from community relations, and that the government should listen to people like him because he had "been to Syria" and understands the world view of young people considering leaving.
Flag design
Mallah designed a new flag for Australia in 2015 which he named ''AusRoo''.
Denied entry to Singapore
On 7 June 2018, Mallah was denied entry to Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
.[ Officials detained him, at the airport. Mallah was able to contact an Australian reporter before Singapore officials took away his phone, prior to questioning him. He later reported they questioned him for five hours, before sending him back to Australia.
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mallah, Zaky
Australian Muslims
1984 births
Living people
People from Sydney
Australian people of Lebanese descent