Australia | Extremist sentenced to 17 years in prison for plot

Milazim Kruezi (center) the father of Agim Kruezi, an extremist sentenced to 17 years in prison, leaves the Supreme Court in Brisbane

An extremist who planned a suicide attack with Molotov cocktails in Australia after he was prevented from flying to Syria to fight was sentenced by an Australian judge yesterday to 17 years in prison.

Agim Kruezi, 25, had pleaded guilty in the Queensland state Supreme Court to preparing for an incursion into a foreign state and preparing for a terrorist act.

It is illegal under Australian law for an Australian citizen to fight in a foreign country except for a state military force.

Kruezi was sentenced to 17 years and four months in prison, with a non-parole period of 13 years.

Justice Rosalyn Atkinson found he had not rejected the violent, extremist views that led him to buying materials to create Molotov cocktails to unleash an attack.

“You remain a serious risk to the public,” Atkinson said.

She ruled Kruezi wanted to create “death or destruction” in Australia and was motivated by a religious duty.

Kruezi’s bid to travel to Syria to fight with al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat Al Nusrah in March 2014 was blocked by officials at Brisbane Airport.

He turned his focus to an attack on home soil after his passport was canceled.

He was arrested in a police raid at his home in Logan, south of Brisbane, in September 2014 after buying 10 liters of gasoline in a jerry can.

Prosecutor Lincoln Crowley told the court Kruezi was planning “to kill random, innocent people in a public place and ultimately die as a martyr in that attack.” AP