Hassan El Sabsabi after the raid on his Seabrook home. Hassan El Sabsabi after the raid on his Seabrook home in September. Photo: Jason South

A Melbourne man accused of sending money overseas to fund terrorist organisations worked in his family's pizza shop and was no threat or danger to anyone living in Australia, a court has heard.

Defence lawyer Stewart Bayles said Hassan El Sabsabi, 23, who appeared in the Supreme Court on Wednesday for a bail application, was opposed to the Assad regime in Syria but had not expressed any anti-Australian or anti-American sentiments.

Mr El Sabsabi, 23, was arrested on September 30 during a raid on his Seabrook home and charged with seven counts of making funds available to terror groups.

One charge related to funding the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, while the others involved sending money to another terrorist group, Jabhat al-Nusra. The charges each carry a maximum penalty of 25 years' jail.


Prosecutor Krista Breckweg told the court the Crown case against Mr El Sabsabi was strong and it was clear from all the evidence that he knew he was sending money to a member of the terrorist organisations.

Ms Breckweg said Mr El Sabsabi had been motivated by a powerful ideology to help these terrorist organisations and had expressed a desire to go to Syria to fight.

She said Mr El Sabsabi had sought financial assistance from others on Facebook to donate to the cause in the name of Allah.

"It's serious offending and he doesn't think it's a crime," the prosecutor said. "He says to police, 'You think it's a crime but I don't."'

Ms Breckweg said Mr El Sabsabi had known Jabhat al-Nusra was a terrorist group because when police seized his phone after his arrest they found he had accessed the Australian National Security website, which lists Jabhat al-Nusra as a terrorist organisation.

Justice Bernard Bongiorno said there was no doubt the charges Mr El Sabsabi was facing were serious but he had sent about $15,000 overseas, not millions of dollars, over a 15-month period before his arrest.

"It's not somebody providing tanks and guns is it?" the judge said. Mr Bayles said there was no allegation that Mr El Sabsabi posed any physical threat to anyone in Australia.

Mr El Sabsabi was recently married, had no relevant prior convictions, it was his first time in custody and he had strong family support.

He was being held in the Metropolitan Remand Centre's maximum protection unit and could be there for more than two years before his trial began.

Mr Bayles said Mr El Sabsabi had made comments against the Assad regime, Shia Muslims and the Alawi people in Syria but expressed no anti-Western sentiments.

Mr Bayles said Mr El Sabsabi's actions had to be viewed in the context of the three-year civil war in Syria and how the Jabhat al-Nusra group had evolved out of this conflict.

The US government had supported a number of opposition groups fighting the Assad regime and Jabhat al-Nusra was one of these groups.

Justice Bongiorno agreed to grant Mr El Sabsabi bail but with strict conditions, saying the earliest he could expect to go to trial would be in mid-2016 which meant he would have been in jail for up to two years before the matter was finalised.

Mr El Sabsabi's bail conditions included a $250,000 surety, reporting daily to Werribee police station, surrendering his passport and not applying for a new one, not leaving Victoria, not communicating with the man known as 'Z' who he had been sending money to overseas, and not sending any money overseas to anyone else.

Mr El Sabsabi was also ordered not to access the internet to use social media and not contact any prosecution witnesses.

Justice Bongiorno told Mr El Sabsabi he had come as close as anyone to having bail refused and although he was facing serious charges, he was innocent until proven guilty but was still "under a cloud".

The judge said if Mr El Sabsabi breached any of his bail conditions, he would be back in jail so fast his feet would not touch the ground.