Sydney teen encouraged to join IS by Australian charity boss, Lebanese military tribunal told
Sydney: An Australian teenager jailed in Lebanon on accusations he was trying to join Islamic State (IS) has allegedly confessed he was encouraged to become a foreign fighter by the head of a Sydneybased charity which has been under a cloud of suspicion by Lebanese and Australian authorities.
The explosive allegation is contained in a Lebanese court dossier, obtained by the ABC, in the military tribunal case of 19-year-old Isaak el Matari, from Sydney, who has spent the past nine months in Lebanon’s notorious Roumieh jail accused of planning to travel to Syria to join IS.
Mr Matari was arrested by Lebanese security forces in the northern city of Tripoli on August 31 last year, less than two weeks after he secretly flew to Lebanon, shocking his Sydney family.
In a statement announcing his arrest last year, the Internal Security Forces said the teenager, who it identified only as “AM”, was two days away from travelling across the border to Syria and had been monitored communicating with IS terrorists, including a foreign IS “co-ordinator”, about his plans to join the group.
Over the past nine months, he has been brought before Lebanon’s military tribunal and been interrogated by the country’s intelligence agencies, which say he has provided information about Australian IS fighters, supporters and funders.