There was no evidence that Melbourne terrorist Shane Kent had abandoned the cause of violent jihad, a Supreme Court judge has found.

Justice Bernard Bongiorno yesterday sentenced Kent, 32, to five years' jail after he pleaded guilty to being a member of a Melbourne terror cell between July 2004 and November 2005, and contributing to an internet video glorifying martyrs. Kent was sentenced to a minimum of three years and nine months' jail. He will be eligible for parole within nine months because he has already served three years of pre-sentence detention.

A jury failed to reach a verdict on whether Kent was a member of the terror cell when he and 11 others, seven of whom were found guilty of terrorism offences, stood trial last year. Kent's guilty plea came as he was about to face a retrial.

He also pleaded guilty to recklessly making a document (the propaganda video) connected with a terrorist act.

Justice Bongiorno said Kent was ''a committed jihadi'' whose dedication to the Melbourne terror cell was revealed in tape-recorded conversations. In one, he complained that oppression by authorities made it difficult to advance the Islamic cause by violence in Australia.
Kent also went along with a suggestion that the group carry out a terrorist act in Australia before a federal election. ''… [T]he inference being that the group … should put pressure on the government to achieve [its] aims, one of which was the withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq and Afghanistan,'' Justice Bongiorno said.

He said Kent's military training at al-Qaeda's al-Farooq camp brought to the Melbourne terror cell ''many skills which would be of use to it in the carrying out of its terrorist activities''. Police seized ''a considerable electronic library of terrorist material'' from Kent, he said, which supported violence against ''unbelievers'' and included videos of hostages being beheaded.

Justice Bongiorno said Kent's help to create images for an introduction to the video Such are the Messengers Tested had potential to advance the cause of violent jihad. It featured images of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and a speech by its former Iraq leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, calling on Muslims to join the jihad against Americans, Jews, Christians and other ''enemies'' of Islam.

Justice Bongiorno said he did not accept that Kent's capacity to make sound decisions was compromised because he had depression at the time, finding that his offending was not impulsive and occurred over a considerable period. He said there was no evidence that Kent was remorseful, despite making such comments to psychiatrists.

''There is no doubt that Kent is sorry for having got himself into the situation in which he is facing a jail sentence. However, whatever his feeling in this respect I am not prepared to accept … that he has abandoned the cause of violent jihad,'' Justice Bongiorno said.

''There is no admissible evidence of his having done so, or of being genuinely contrite for what he did.''