For almost two years, Mohommed Farhat has been in prison after he pleaded guilty to 15 offences in connection with property damage, including spray-painting \u201cFuk Israel\u201d on cars in Sydney\u2019s east and setting another vehicle alight in late 2024.<\/p>\n
This week, the New South Wales<\/a> supreme court justice Desmond Fagan ruled that police, lower courts and various state agencies all incorrectly labelled Farhat\u2019s actions antisemitic, meaning he was treated more harshly.<\/p>\n Fagan wrote in his judgment<\/a>, released on Tuesday, that \u201cFuk Israel\u201d was \u201ca curse against a foreign state\u201d. He also criticised the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism as \u201cdetached from reality\u201d and \u201cinept\u201d.<\/p>\n Farhat\u2019s case came before Fagan this year when the state tried and failed to cast him as a future terror threat based on what Fagan called the same \u201cmisconception\u201d about his motivation.<\/p>\n During a July hearing, Fagan told the parties: \u201cThis proceeding against this man seems to me to have been derailed and gone completely haywire right from the beginning by the police representation to the magistrate and submissions to the magistrate and again to the district court judge that this content was antisemitic. And it\u2019s erroneous.\u201d<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Fagan said that the case appeared to be a \u201cserious miscarriage of justice\u201d.<\/p>\n Police failed to share intelligence<\/p>\n Farhat, then 20, was remanded in custody in November 2024. He and a co-offender had spray-painted slogans on cars, defaced buildings and set alight a vehicle that was destroyed in Woollahra. The graffiti included \u201cFuk Israel\u201d and \u201cPKK coming\u201d \u2013 a reference to the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 party.<\/p>\n Farhat pleaded guilty to the property damage offences but insisted he was recruited to do the graffiti by an unknown person. He said he was told what to write and was paid money and promised drugs.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n The incident was the first of a spate of graffiti and arson attacks in Sydney\u2019s eastern suburbs that summer which the Australian federal police later determined were carried out by paid criminals<\/a> and orchestrated by organised crime figures.<\/p>\n The magistrate determined the property offences were antisemitic and handed Farhat an aggravated sentence \u2013 20 months in jail with a non-parole period of 10 months.<\/p>\n He was due to be released on parole from early December 2025. The magistrate set the non-parole period with a note that Farhat would be \u201cbetter served with an extended period of supervision on parole, particularly around drug and alcohol and mental health interventions\u201d.<\/p>\n But the parole order was later revoked after a successful application by the commissioner of corrective services and the crown.<\/p>\n The state then applied for a one-year extended supervision order (ESO) under the Terrorism Act, which would have subjected Farhat to 55 conditions on his release from jail.<\/p>\n In the hearing regarding that application in July, the supreme court was provided intelligence which showed counter-terrorism police had accepted, three weeks after Farhat\u2019s arrest, that he had been recruited and was not ideologically motivated.<\/p>\n But police had not shared that information with the prosecution or the magistrate who sentenced Farhat.<\/p>\n Fagan this week found that key evidence was also not tendered to the magistrate, including a page of Farhat\u2019s bank statements which showed money had been transferred to his account, which Fagan accepted was proof of his recruitment.<\/p>\n Fagan ruled the magistrate had erred in deeming the offences antisemitic.<\/p>\n NSW supreme court justice Desmond Fagan. Photograph: NSW supreme court<\/p>\n Fagan found the crown solicitor, in their submissions to revoke the parole order, continued to wrongly conflate \u201cpolitical comment\u201d with antisemitism. He found the intervention by the commissioner of corrective services was \u201cmost unusual\u201d \u2013 he was not aware of any other such interventions.<\/p>\n Farhat unsuccessfully appealed against the severity of his sentence in the district court in January 2026.<\/p>\n Fagan found that during the appeal, a representative from the director of public prosecution had continued \u201cmerging\u201d political speech with antisemitism \u201cto the extreme\u201d and had made \u201cextravagant and untenable\u201d submissions.<\/p>\n That same month, the state lodged its application for a terrorism protection order, again arguing that \u201cFuk Israel\u201d conveyed an antisemitic message.<\/p>\n A car vandalised in Woollahra in November 2024. Photograph: Luca Ittimani\/The GuardianIHRA definition of antisemitism criticised<\/p>\n Fagan dedicated a significant portion of this week\u2019s written judgment to distinguishing anti-Israel speech from antisemitic speech.<\/p>\n \u201cFor decades Jewish people have been amongst the most forceful critics of Israel\u2019s conduct towards the Palestinians and have been the source of insistent pleas for the rights of the Palestinians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can it be antisemitic \u2013 in the established sense of the word \u2013 to disparage Israel when doing so accords with the words and beliefs of many Jews?\u201d<\/p>\n He rejected the argument that it was antisemitic. Fagan noted the state also claimed that because the slogans were spray-painted in an area with a concentration of Jewish residents and there was criminal damage the words \u201cFuk Israel\u201d took on an antisemitic meaning \u201cin context\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI do not accept that,\u201d he said. \u201cThe political nature of the curse was not changed by the circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n Fagan was heavily critical of the controversial IHRA definition<\/a> of antisemitism referred to in the crown\u2019s evidence. It has been formally endorsed by the Australian government and is the accepted definition of the ongoing royal commission into antisemitism established after December\u2019s Bondi beach terror attack<\/a> that killed 15 people during a Hanukah festival.<\/p>\n \u201cThe IHRA proposal is detached from the reality of the common usage and understanding of antisemitism in this country,\u201d Fagan wrote, noting he was \u201cnot the first to have criticised the inept drafting of the IHRA formulation\u201d.<\/p>\n The judge referred to a June 2026 poll from the Pew Research Center, which found 79% of Australian respondents viewed Israel unfavourably with a similar disapproval rate in other countries.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be preposterous to suggest that 79% of Australians are antisemitic because they disapprove of Israel\u2019s treatment of the Palestinians,\u201d Fagan said.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralians who strongly disapprove of Israel\u2019s treatment of the Palestinians have freedom to express their views.\u201d<\/p>\n To grant the request for an extended supervision order, Fagan had to be satisfied there was a \u201chigh degree of probability that the [defendant] poses an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence\u201d if not supervised when released from prison.<\/p>\n The state argued there was evidence of this risk, including that Farhat had a Hezbollah tattoo on his neck, had attended a protest against Israel\u2019s attacks on Lebanon, and had exchanged text messages with family members about attacks in southern Lebanon. But Fagan rejected the argument and knocked back the ESO application. He ordered the state to pay Farhat\u2019s legal costs.<\/p>\n The judge noted that members of Farhat\u2019s family had strong ties to the Shia Muslim community of Lebanon. He got the tattoo in the months before he was arrested and had no \u201cpast fealty to Hezbollah\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever judgment others might make of right and wrong in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, it is understandable that people of Lebanese Shia Muslim heritage would follow closely the military conflict that commenced in late September 2024 and that they would have sympathy for Hezbollah,\u201d Fagan wrote this week.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is understandable that such people would feel hostility towards Israel, based on the long communal history of disruption to their society since Israel was established.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralian citizens with less connection to Lebanon \u2026 might reasonably express similar upset at the loss of human life and the destruction of villages.\u201d<\/p>\n While in prison, a Jewish religion teacher began to meet Farhat, Fagan noted.<\/p>\n When he was sentenced in November 2025, the teacher provided a letter of support and she did the same during the supreme court hearing regarding a potential ESO.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring my time in custody, I have had contact from Ms Ellie Nagel who is a part of the Jewish community,\u201d Farhat wrote in a letter submitted to the local court a year ago.<\/p>\n \u201cHer and I discussed Judaism and the holocaust and other religions and history. Ellie also spoke to me about the feelings of the Jewish community when people like me commit such acts. This really opened my eyes and allowed me to look at matters from other people\u2019s perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n Reaction to ruling<\/p>\n Farhat\u2019s solicitor, Abdul Reslan, said his legal team was considering the options regarding \u201cany miscarriage of justice that has arisen\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere has been unease with respect to the approach of authorities throughout this matter,\u201d Reslan said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe failure to disclose and investigate information known to the authorities at a very early stage, and proceed to prosecute the matter in a one-dimensional format, has caused unnecessary harm.\u201d<\/p>\n NSW Labor MP Stephen Lawrence, a former barrister, said in response to Fagan\u2019s ruling that \u201csearing truth on a contentious social policy issue in a judicial judgment\u201d was rare but \u201cthe unique factual and legal context absolutely demanded it\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a case of fearless high-level legal analysis colliding with politicised narratives that are being continually deployed in aid of conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism,\u201d Lawrence said. \u201cThe politicised narratives lost out, and so they should have.\u201d<\/p>\n