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Posted: 2016-07-12 05:16:00

Hamdi Alqudsi arrives at Parramatta Court earlier in the trial.

A DISABILITY support pensioner who has two wives has been found guilty of recruiting and assisting six wannabe jihadists to go to Syria to fight.

Hamdi Alqudsi, 41, of Palestinian-origin, stood expressionless while a jury foreperson announced “guilty” to six counts of recruiting people to fight in Syria.

The jury have not reached a verdict in relation to a seventh man he is alleged to have helped reach Syria to fight with Islamic State.

Alqudsi pleaded not guilty to seven counts of recruiting the men with the intention of facilitating their entry into Syria for hostile activity between June and November 2013. The offence carries a maximum penalty of 10 years jail for each count.

Six of the men made it to Syria and two of the men, Tyler Casey and Caner Temel, died fighting for opposing Islamist rebel groups.

Casey and his wife Amira Karroum were with al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra when they were killed by Islamic State fighters in January 2014 while Temel was killed in the same month fighting for Islamic State.

Alqudsi and his lawyer Zali Burrows.

Alqudsi and his lawyer Zali Burrows.Source:News Corp Australia

It took six hours for the 12-person jury to find Alqudsi guilty of the six charges.

The jury is continuing to deliberate on the seventh count in relation to a man called Nassim Elbahsa who was allegedly the last person Alqudsi helped get to Syria to fight in 2013.

During the two week trial the jury heard intercepted phone calls and read transcripts of social media conversations between Alquidsi, the alleged recruits and Australia’s most senior IS member in Syria, Mohammed Ali Baryalei, who said he wanted “to open the door for the rest of the boys.”

The phone calls revealed Alqudsi organised the travel plans of the men to fly to Istanbul, in Turkey, and then on to the border province of Hatay where they would be smuggled into Syria and brought to “Abu Omar” the nickname for Baryalei.

During the conversation he used codes sometimes calling the men “soccer players,” or referring to battles as “operations or surgeries.”

In one phone call Alqudsi told a recruit Amin Mohamed that he had just received a message from, “the boys”.

Alqudsi’s lawyer Zali Burrows outside court.

Alqudsi’s lawyer Zali Burrows outside court.Source:News Corp Australia

Alqudsi has been found guilty of six of seven counts.

Alqudsi has been found guilty of six of seven counts.Source:News Corp Australia

“There’s a big, big surgery, big, big operation coming up involving 1500 brothers and the Emir said their may be a very big number of them that may attain martyrdom ... you guys better start pushing before the front lines are full.”

In one phone call Baryalei, a former Kings Cross bouncer and extra on TV series Underbelly: The Golden Mile, tells Alqudsi he has decided that “the boys” will join up with IS and move from “the front” (Jabhat al-Nusra).

Another conversation with Baryalei reveals the jihadi’s state of mind after a battle in which he saw his “Emir” (commander) was killed “right in front of our eyes.”

“I don’t want to be here man, I’m over it, I’m over it,” Baryalei says and then begins to cry.

Baryalei is believed to have died in 2014.

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