Melbourne: A Bangladeshi student who enrolled in an Australian university with the aim of killing someone in the name of the Islamic State group was jailed for 42 years Wednesday for stabbing her local host as he slept.
Momena Shoma, 26, admitted to engaging in a terrorist act when she stabbed Roger Singaravelu in the neck with a kitchen knife just eight days after arriving in Australia.
Shoma, who wore a black niqab showing only her eyes at the sentencing hearing in Victoria state’s supreme court, shouted “Allahu akbar” as she attacked Singaravelu.
The man survived and was also present at the hearing, the court heard. “Your deeds and words, and the intentions accompanying them, are chilling,” said judge Lesley Taylor in handing down the sentence of 42 years, with a non-parole period of 31 years and six months.
She faced a maximum sentence of life in prison. Taylor said her actions “sent ripples of horror throughout the Australian community”.
“But they do not make you a martyr. They do not make you a beacon of Islam… They make you an undistinguished criminal,” she said.
Prosecutors said Shoma became radicalised in 2013 while living in Dhaka and became enamoured of the Islamic State and its calls for Muslims to engage in violent jihad against non-Muslims. (AFP)
