The Kangaroo Suicide Bomber: the Strange, Sad Case of Sevdet Besim

When you're a teenager, it's hard to get taken seriously. People dismiss your plans and ignore your ambitions, confident in the knowledge that your worldview will mature once you've notched up a few more years of wear and tear. However one Melbourne teenager, Sevdet Besim, found a whole world of people willing to take him seriously.

In April 2015, 200 officers raided Sevdet's home in Hallam, in Melbourne's south-east. Police had caught wind of his online activities—much of the then 18-year-old's year had been spent chatting with extremists and planning his debut on the terrorist world stage. Sevdet has been in jail ever since; he was arrested after the raid with little fanfare.

But in January 2016 though his case had a moment of clickbait fame. Court documents tendered by the prosecution came to the media's attention, which detailed Sevdet's bizarre plot. As the official record states, the plan "include[ed] a suggestion that a kangaroo could be packed with C4 explosive, painted with the IS symbol, and set loose on police officers." The attack was planned for April 25: Anzac Day.

Now is probably as good a time as any to mention that Sevdet's main co-conspirator was a 14-year-old British boy suffering from degenerative vision loss. That boy was recently sentenced to life in prison in the UK for his nefarious online activities. Back home, Sevdet has recently entered a guilty plea, and now faces the possibility of receiving a life sentence of his own. The recently-floated indefinite detention laws could very well ensure that Sevdet is never released.

So how seriously should we be taking these very teenage terrorists? Police have stressed that Sevdet was considering more prosaic and reliable forms of murder after the kangaroo plot fell through. A note was found on his phone, pledging his allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) and saying he wanted to become a martyr. They believe he was on the verge of acting.

And it wouldn't have been the first, or even the second, time young Australians have committed violent terrorist-inspired acts. In the same note, Sevdet said he was inspired by the death of his friend Numan Haider, who was killed when he attacked counterterrorism officers with a knife. The death had "opened my eyes up to the reality of who the real enemy is," Sevdet wrote.

Even knowing this though, there's something disquieting about seeing the full security and legal apparatus of the state deployed against such young, inept offenders. Just how afraid should we be of high-school-aged militants who express their zest for violent struggle through curious raptor memes? Is there a point where cranking up the law and order response becomes counterproductive?

Searching for answers to these questions led to Dr Clarke Jones, an ANU academic, who's worked extensively with the government on deradicalisation initiatives.

Dr Jones said he was worried about the possibility of an extensive sentence for Sevdet, pointing out Sevdet's reference to ANZAC Day in his plotting had "brought on a strong response" and the "importance of a national day" could lead to a bias in the court room.

The accused's co-opting of terrorist language and ISIS mythology, Dr Jones argued, had blinded people to the fact that they were essentially (to use expert terminology) "young and stupid."

As Dr Jones pointed out to me, Australia's courts operate under principals of precedents. He has concerns that "if precedent is established now, it would enshrine tough penalties as means of deterrence, which may contribute to the problem." It would also, he added, "destroy their chances at rehabilitation."

A key issue Dr Jones raised was that community fears around the risk of condemning someone to life in prison can spark "a larger feeling not to report." Referrals and tip-offs, both central to anti-terror intelligence gathering, may drop off. New South Wales has actually gone the opposite way to Victoria: opening up advice lines to families, having government programs that interact with and support at-risk groups, like teenage boys.

Dr Jones was worried that the federal government's desire to "maintain a tough stance" could see this type of work become undone. He was worried that things could deteriorate further under the progression of tough rhetoric with tough measures, criticising the "heavily laden terms that the government is persistent in using. Research shows that language is counterproductive."

We've been living with this language and methodology of a War on Terror for a long time. It's almost 15 years to the day. But it's hard to conceptualise that war—what fighting and winning means—when the opposition is an 18-year-old meme poster and a 14-year-old with vision loss. As sentencing approaches, watch this space.