The man wrongly imprisoned over the Arsalan Khawaja fake terror plot has told of how the incident made him feel “I am not worth anything” and plunged him into bouts of “existential crisis”.
Khawaja, 40, the lovelorn brother of Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja, on Friday conceded in court that he was set to be imprisoned over the bizarre saga.
Khawaja will next month learn his fate when he is sentenced in the District Court having pleaded guilty to four charges including perverting the course of justice after he attempted to frame two men for terror offences in 2017 and 2018.
His lawyers have pleaded for leniency, claiming he was mentally ill at the time, however the impact of his crimes have been laid bare in a victim impact statement tendered to the court.
Mohamed Kamer Nizamdeen’s once bright world was turned on its head in late August 2018 when he was arrested as part of a major terror investigation.
Khawaja took a notepad that belonged to Nizamdeen, a University of NSW colleague, and forged false entries.
Mr Nizamdeen said: “Khawaja’s heinous and devious actions are everlasting” after he was forced to spend 28 days in solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison.
He was branded a terrorist, sparking a ripple effect across his whole world including his family.
“I cannot find joy in the things that I used to do as I am constantly reminded of how violently and sudden my life was taken from me and I fear that it may happen again,” Mr Nizamdeen said.
He said his family spent $50,000 in legal fees and $40,000 in other expenses, only to be freed when handwriting analysis proved he wasn’t the author of the notes.
“I hold Arsalan Khawaja accountable for causing this irreparable grief, trauma and issues on me and my family,” Mr Nizamdeen said.
Among Khawaja’s fake manifesto were references to carrying out terrorist acts, jihad, recruiting for Islamic state and travelling to Sri Lanka for weapons training.
Mr Nizamdeen returned to his native Sri Lanka soon after he was cleared but said he was still treated with suspicion by authorities and his name had been permanently tarred.
He also angrily denied that he was involved in a “love triangle” with Khawaja and said Khawaja’s jealousy had no basis in reality.
Khawaja has said he wanted Mr Nizamdeen to be preoccupied with the accusations so he could get closer to Shakeela Shahid, a young woman who also worked at the University of NSW campus.
However Mr Nizamdeen was at the time seeing another woman who is now his fiancee.
Khawaja is facing a maximum jail term of 10 years and his barrister Phillip Boulten SC on Friday told the court that he accepted he was facing a lengthy prison sentence.
Khawaja sobbed openly as Mr Boulten described his remorse and how his acute mental illness contributed to the bizarre incidents.
The court heard he was suffering from borderline personality disorder and was experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations at the time.
“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.”
Khawaja will also be sentenced for a similar offence in January 2017 when he called the Border Watch hotline to make a false complaint about a man, who can only be known as M1.
M1 had dated a woman, who can only be known as F1 for legal reasons, who Khawaja had previously been in a relationship with.
Khawaja told the operator that M1 had expressed extreme religious views and attended a training camp in Pakistan in 2017.
According to a statement of agreed facts, Khawaja also made an anonymous internet report to the Border Watch website about M1 four months earlier.
“There is an escalation of the conduct, he’s had three cracks at it,” prosecutor Paul McGuire SC said.
Khawaja will be sentenced by Judge Robert Weber on November 5.
https://www.news.com.au/sport/crick...s/news-story/c5788675d4a87cd2ad61b6f2b3b03709
