Melbourne, October 2: Arsalan Khawaja, brother of Australia cricket team opener Usman Khawaja, could be sentenced for a jail term after pleading guilty over fake terror plots. However, Arsalan argued that he was not mentally stable at that time and a District Court is set to pronounce the verdict next month.
The charge was that he attempted to frame a man for terror attack charges in 2017 and 2018, Australia's Fox Sports reported. The case stated that he attempted to frame the man, Mohamed Kamer Nizamdeen, in terror plots on two different occasions after they approached the two different women with romantic intentions.
Arsalan now faces a maximum of 10 years in jail. "The offender has always accepted that the seriousness of the offending is one which can only be punished appropriately by a term of imprisonment and one of some significance," Phillip Boulten, Barrister of Arsalan said.
"He's ashamed of himself, he finds it hard to live with it," Mr Boulten said as Khawaja wept. "He's not bunging this on, it's real. It's a real sadness about what he did."
Boulten further reiterated that Khawaja was suffering from an acute mental illness.
"On the one hand, there's little doubt that at the time the offender did what he did that he was suffering from mental illness," Boulten said.
"That it was enduring, severe and debilitating. He would never have done anything remotely like this if he wasn't mentally ill. His mental illness was driving his thinking, it was preposterous. It was goal-orientated, but it was crazy," he said.