A New South Wales Supreme Court justice has ruled that police, magistrates and prosecutors wrongly branded a young man's anti-Israel graffiti and vandalism spree as antisemitic, a mischaracterisation that led to him being handed a harsher sentence and nearly landed him under a terrorism-linked supervision order. Justice Desmond Fagan found on Wednesday that Mohommed Farhat, who has spent almost two years behind bars after pleading guilty to 15 property offences committed in Sydney's eastern suburbs in late 2024, was the victim of what appeared to be a "serious miscarriage of justice".
Farhat, now 22, admitted to spray-painting slogans including "Fuk Israel" on cars and buildings in Woollahra and setting a vehicle alight, alongside a co-offender. He has consistently maintained he was recruited by an unknown person, told what to write, and paid for the work with money and promised drugs.
What did Farhat plead guilty to?
Farhat admitted 15 offences connected to property damage carried out in Sydney's east in late 2024, including graffiti reading "Fuk Israel" and "PKK coming" — a reference to the Kurdistan Workers Party — sprayed on cars and buildings, along with the destruction of a vehicle by fire. He was remanded in custody in November 2024 when he was 20 years old.
The vandalism was the opening incident in a wider run of graffiti and arson attacks across Sydney's eastern suburbs that summer, which the Australian Federal Police later concluded had been orchestrated by organised crime figures. A magistrate found the property offences were antisemitic in nature and imposed an aggravated sentence of 20 months' imprisonment with a 10-month non-parole period, with release originally due from early December 2025.
Why did the judge call the case a miscarriage of justice?
Justice Fagan found that the antisemitism label attached to Farhat's conduct at every stage of the proceedings was simply wrong, and that this error compounded as the case moved through the system. During a hearing in July, he told the parties:
This proceeding against this man seems to me to have been derailed and gone completely haywire right from the beginning by the police representation to the magistrate and submissions to the magistrate and again to the district court judge that this content was antisemitic. And it's erroneous.
He went further in his written judgment released this week, describing the overall handling of the case as amounting to "a serious miscarriage of justice". The magistrate's parole order, which had noted Farhat would benefit from "an extended period of supervision on parole, particularly around drug and alcohol and mental health interventions", was later revoked following a successful application from the commissioner of corrective services and the Crown. Farhat's appeal against the severity of his sentence was also rejected by the district court in January 2026.
How did police intelligence failures affect the case?
Justice Fagan found that counterterrorism police had accepted, within three weeks of Farhat's arrest, that he had been recruited for money rather than driven by ideology — but this finding was never passed on to prosecutors or the magistrate who sentenced him. A page of Farhat's bank statements showing transfers into his account, which Fagan accepted corroborated his account of being paid to carry out the graffiti, was also never put before the magistrate.
The judge said the Crown Solicitor's submissions seeking to revoke Farhat's parole had continued to wrongly conflate political commentary with antisemitism, and described the intervention by the commissioner of corrective services as "most unusual", adding he was not aware of any comparable case. He found that during Farhat's unsuccessful sentence appeal in the district court, a representative of the director of public prosecutions had pushed the conflation of political speech and antisemitism "to the extreme", making submissions he characterised as "extravagant and untenable". The state nonetheless pressed ahead in January 2026 with an application for a terrorism-related extended supervision order, again asserting that "Fuk Israel" carried an antisemitic meaning.
According to a report from the national broadcaster's coverage of the January hearing, Farhat was 21 at the time and had been given a sentence totalling one year and eight months for the graffiti and arson offences. The same report noted that Justice Fagan ultimately dismissed the bid for a terrorism-linked extended supervision order, concluding Farhat's actions were driven by financial reward rather than ideological or antisemitic motivation.
Separate reporting cited by a Jewish community news outlet indicated the original vandalism spree had caused more than $100,000 in damage, including to restaurateur Matt Moran's Chiswick restaurant, and that Farhat initially faced 21 charges, among them 14 counts of destroying or damaging property.
What did the judge say about the IHRA definition of antisemitism?
Much of Justice Fagan's written judgment was devoted to separating criticism of Israel from antisemitism itself. He wrote:
For decades Jewish people have been amongst the most forceful critics of Israel's conduct towards the Palestinians and have been the source of insistent pleas for the rights of the Palestinians.
How can it be antisemitic – in the established sense of the word – to disparage Israel when doing so accords with the words and beliefs of many Jews?
He rejected the state's argument that the graffiti's location in an area with a concentration of Jewish residents, combined with the criminal damage itself, gave "Fuk Israel" an antisemitic meaning "in context", stating: "I do not accept that. The political nature of the curse was not changed by the circumstances."
Fagan directed sharp criticism at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, formally endorsed by the Australian government and adopted by the ongoing royal commission into antisemitism established after an attack that killed 15 people during a Hanukkah festival. He wrote that the IHRA proposal was "detached from the reality of the common usage and understanding of antisemitism in this country", adding he was "not the first to have criticised the inept drafting of the IHRA formulation". Citing a June 2026 Pew Research Center poll finding 79% of Australian respondents viewed Israel unfavourably, with similar disapproval recorded in other countries, he said:
It would be preposterous to suggest that 79% of Australians are antisemitic because they disapprove of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
Australians who strongly disapprove of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians have freedom to express their views.
To grant the state's application for a one-year extended supervision order under terrorism legislation, which would have imposed 55 conditions on Farhat after release, Fagan needed to be satisfied there was a high probability Farhat posed an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence. The state pointed to a Hezbollah tattoo on Farhat's neck, his attendance at a protest against Israeli strikes on Lebanon, and text messages exchanged with family about the conflict in southern Lebanon. Fagan rejected the application, ordering the state to pay Farhat's legal costs, and noted the tattoo was obtained only months before his arrest with no evidence of prior allegiance to Hezbollah.
He wrote that given Farhat's family ties to the Shia Muslim community of Lebanon, it was understandable such people would follow the conflict that began in late September 2024 closely and feel sympathy for Hezbollah, and that "Australian citizens with less connection to Lebanon … might reasonably express similar upset at the loss of human life and the destruction of villages." The judgment also noted that a Jewish religion teacher, Ellie Nagel, had met with Farhat during his time in custody and provided letters of support both at his original sentencing and during the supreme court hearing. Farhat wrote in a letter submitted to the local court a year earlier:
During my time in custody, I have had contact from Ms Ellie Nagel who is a part of the Jewish community. Her and I discussed Judaism and the holocaust and other religions and history. Ellie also spoke to me about the feelings of the Jewish community when people like me commit such acts. This really opened my eyes and allowed me to look at matters from other people's perspectives.
How have others responded to the ruling?
Farhat's solicitor, Abdul Reslan, said his legal team was weighing its options over "any miscarriage of justice that has arisen", adding that "there has been unease with respect to the approach of authorities throughout this matter" and that failing to disclose known information at an early stage and prosecuting the case in a "one-dimensional format" had caused unnecessary harm.
Labor MP Stephen Lawrence, a former barrister, said Fagan's willingness to deliver "searing truth on a contentious social policy issue in a judicial judgment" was rare but justified by the case's circumstances, describing it as an instance of "fearless high-level legal analysis colliding with politicised narratives that are being continually deployed in aid of conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism", adding that "the politicised narratives lost out, and so they should have." Lawrence had previously been among a small group of government MPs who broke with the NSW premier to attend a protest against Israel's actions in Gaza in August 2025.
This case follows a pattern of Australian courts and legislatures grappling with how to treat pro-Palestinian expression. In Queensland, a Jewish clinical psychologist, Stephen Heydt, was among the first people charged under new state laws banning pro-Palestinian slogans, a development detailed in earlier coverage of Queensland's slogan laws. In Sydney, a court separately ruled that a bail condition banning a Palestinian Australian protester from entering the inner city during a visit by Israeli president Isaac Herzog was disproportionate, as reported in coverage of that bail dispute.
What happens next for Farhat?
A supreme court hearing was held on Wednesday, the day after Fagan's ruling was published, to determine when Farhat might be released. Fagan indicated he would write to the chairman of the state parole authority, though the Crown prosecutor questioned whether he had the authority to compel the authority to release the now 22-year-old. Fagan said he was "simply" asking whether the state intended to "do something" to "correct the evident injustice", and while declining to apportion fault to any individual, said the original sentencing magistrate had been "misled". He reiterated that the case appeared "to be a serious miscarriage of justice". As of Wednesday, Farhat remained in custody.
Separate reporting from 8 August 2026 cited by a national news wire noted that the Supreme Court's dismissal of the extended supervision order means Farhat will not face ongoing court-monitored conditions once he is released from prison. Broader scrutiny of how antisemitism is defined and prosecuted in the state continues through the New South Wales Parliament's inquiry into antisemitism in New South Wales, which according to the parliamentary inquiry's official page has further hearings and milestones scheduled.
Key Facts
- Mohommed Farhat pleaded guilty to 15 property offences over graffiti and arson in Woollahra in late 2024, including the slogan "Fuk Israel".
- Supreme Court Justice Desmond Fagan ruled the offences were wrongly labelled antisemitic and called the case a likely "serious miscarriage of justice".
- Counterterrorism police accepted within three weeks of Farhat's arrest that he acted for money, not ideology, but did not with prosecutors or the sentencing magistrate.
- Fagan dismissed the state's bid for a one-year terrorism-related extended supervision order and ordered it to pay Farhat's legal costs.
- Farhat remained in custody as of Wednesday, with Fagan indicating he would write to the state parole authority about a possible release.
