Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja’s elder brother, Arsalan Khawaja has been arrested and is set to be jailed over creating fake terror plots. 40-year-old Arsalan Khawaja, pleaded guilty this year to a series of charges after he wrote detailed threats in a notebook then handed it to his project manager at UNSW in August 2018, claiming it belonged to his colleague Mohamed Kamer Nizamdeen.
During the incident, Khawaja was suffering from a mental illness, and he did the hoax just to get the attention of a woman.
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Arsalan Khwaja to serve maximum 10 years of jail time after pleading guilty
The threats written in the notebook were aimed at politicians, including former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, police stations, an Anzac Day service, the Boxing Day Test match, St Mary’s Cathedral, and the Melbourne Cup. Parts of the book also referenced Mr. Nizamdeen’s friends.
Mr. Nizamdeen was arrested and held in a high-security prison until police discovered the book was a hoax. Arsalan Khawaja is now set to serve prison time after being pleaded guilty for his crime.
“The offender has always accepted that the seriousness of the offending is one which can only be punished appropriately by a term of imprisonment and one of some significance,” Khawaja’s barrister Phillip Boulten said.
“He’s ashamed of himself, he finds it hard to live with it. He’s not bunging this on, it’s real. It’s a real sadness about what he did.” Boulten added.
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Arsalan Khawaja’s barrister says he only did the crime because of his mental illness
Barrister Boulton said that Khawaja would have never done such a crime in his right mental state, and his illness drove him to such boundaries.
“He’s not bunging this on, it’s real. It’s a real sadness about what he did. On the one hand, there’s little doubt that at the time the offender did what he did that he was suffering from mental illness,” Mr Boulten said.
“That it was enduring, severe and debilitating. He would never have done anything remotely like this if he wasn’t mentally ill. His mental illness was driving his thinking, it was preposterous. It was goal-orientated, but it was crazy.”
