Wassim Fayad is a self-styled preacher, former extremist bookstore owner, and influential former Islamic State supporter. In 2013 he was jailed after whipping Muslim convert Christian Martinez 40 times with an electrical cable as a "sharia" punishment, serving seven years in total. While in prison, the Joint Counter Terrorism Team alleged he was part of an IS cell known as the "Appleby Group," whose young members visited him behind bars. In 2021 the NSW Supreme Court found him a high risk of committing a serious terrorism offence and placed him on a two-year extended supervision order. He was later found to be part of a WhatsApp group, "BROTHERHOOD," alongside the 16-year-old who stabbed Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at Wakeley church in April 2024, in which a potential attack on the bishop was discussed. He has since been reported working alongside Wissam Haddad, converting teenagers in Sydney's CBD via Haddad's Dawah Van.
Formerly known as Fadi Alameddine or Abu Zakariyah. While on bail in 2013 he and two others used stolen vans in a failed ram raid on a shopping centre ATM, "with the intention of sending money to Syria", and he was convicted as an accessory to an attempted murder at a Sydney sex club. In 2014 and 2015 he was moved to Goulburn's Supermax after young members of an IS cell were found visiting him; police named him as a leader of that cell, whose members went on to commit terrorism offences including the 2015 fatal shooting of NSW Police accountant Curtis Cheng by a 15-year-old. A psychiatric report for the 2021 supervision order said: "He frames his life by ideology and this ideology likely justifies violence." In February 2023 Justice Deborah Sweeney refused to extend the order, saying: "Care must be taken to not confuse his support for his religious beliefs with support for terrorism." In December 2023 he was filmed street-preaching in the Sydney CBD with Wissam Haddad. Counter-terrorism police searched his home on 24 April 2024, nine days after the Wakeley stabbing, in raids codenamed Operation Mingary; he was not charged (ABC, 25 Apr 2024; ABC Four Corners, 21 Apr 2025).
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