Khawaja suffered 'debilitating' mental illness when he wrote fake terror notebook, court told

A sentencing hearing in the NSW District Court was told last month that a woman, given the pseudonym F2, stopped speaking to Khawaja and he believed Mr Nizamdeen was the reason why. He said he wrote the terror notebook because "I wanted him gone".

Crown prosecutor Paul McGuire, SC, said on Friday that the framing of Mr Nizamdeen came after two "ineffective" attempts to get a previous perceived rival, M1, deported or arrested by making terror allegations and claiming he had overstayed his visa.

"Your honour would infer there is an escalation of the conduct," Mr McGuire said. "He’s effectively had three cracks at this, to use the vernacular."

Mr McGuire said, in this case, Mr Nizamdeen decided "to actually create some false evidence rather than just an allegation".

He said Khawaja previously told the court he did not confess the truth to police because he was a "coward", but his actions involved more than simple cowardice.

Khawaja gave false information to police and told lies over a period of time, Mr McGuire said, including claiming Mr Nizamdeen was "acting in a cagey manner" before the notebook was found.

"The Crown says that shows the degree to which this goes beyond cowardliness," Mr McGuire said. "The offender had a number of opportunities to tell the police the truth and didn’t do so."

Mr McGuire said Khawaja – who is an intelligent man who can tell right from wrong – gave "self-serving and inconsistent" answers in his evidence to the court and has "a history of exaggeration and lying in order to obtain a secondary gain", including claiming he has schizophrenia to prison health staff.

He said Khawaja's actions are "extremely serious" and the only appropriate sentence is a "substantial period" of full-time custody.

Khawaja's barrister Phillip Boulten, SC, said on Friday that his client has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, an illness that is "enduring, severe and debilitating".

He said part of this diagnosis is a perception of abandonment, which focused on F2 and an earlier woman, F1.

Mr Boulten said his client "would never have done anything remotely like this if he wasn’t mentally ill".

"His mental illness was driving his thinking. The thinking was preposterous. It was goal-oriented, but crazy," Mr Boulten said. "I say that with due respect to my client and to everybody who suffers from mental illness. I don’t mean to diminish their pain."

Khawaja cried in the dock while Mr Boulten urged Judge Robert Weber to find his client is remorseful.

"He really is sorry about what he did. He’s ashamed of himself, he finds it hard to live with it," Mr Boulten said. "He’s not bunging this on, your honour. It’s a real sadness about what he did."

Khawaja will be sentenced on November 5.