NATION Snapped with gun ‘just to be cool’

A SYDNEY man who pleaded guilty to engaging in hostile activities in Syria denies he was ever involved in fighting, and posed for a photograph holding a rifle because “it looked cool”.

Mehmet Biber was arrested during counter-terrorism raids in November 2016. He travelled to Syria in July 2013 before returning to Australia in February 2014.

He pleaded guilty in February this year to entering a foreign state intending hostile activity.

During a sentencing hearing in the NSW Supreme Court at Parramatta yesterday, the now 25-year-old was asked about a photograph sent back to Australia showing him in a group of nine men holding assault weapons.

Biber was asked during cross-examination why they were dressed in black with only their eyes showing.

“Because it looked cool,” he replied. “We thought it looked cool.”

Biber insisted he’d simply grabbed a gun off guards to pose for the photograph and didn’t want people back in Australia to think he was a fighter.

“If I did, I wouldn’t have covered my face,” he said.

“These days, my generation takes photos of everything they do.”

He said he travelled to the war-torn region after seeing videos of women and children suffering under the Assad regime.

“That hit me in the heart because I had a wife (who) was pregnant at the time as well,” Biber told the court.

One of Biber’s friends introduced him to a man who had connections in Syria and organised for him to join a group travelling there via Turkey.

But a trip to Raqqa a month into his stay led him to doubt whether he was achieving anything.

“We were extremely bored,” Biber told the court, claiming

WE WERE EXTREMELY BORED … IF ANYTHING I WAS A BURDEN TO THESE PEOPLE, FEEDING ME AND TAKING US AROUND, PRACTICALLY TREATING US LIKE KIDS, PRETTY MUCH BABYSITTING US.

MEHMET BIBER

most days were spent lying around sweating or kicking a soccer ball with local children.

He denied ever fighting but admitted he would have tried if given the chance.

“If anything I was a burden to these people, feeding me and taking us around, practically treating us like kids, pretty much babysitting us.”

Biber has been in custody since his 2016 arrest.

“I just want to put it behind me, hopefully, and get on with my life,” he said yesterday.

The hearing, before Justice Christine Adamson, continues.