A Melbourne man sent money to his "beloved brother" fighting in Syria even after seeing photos of him posing with mutilated corpses.
Prosecutors say former pizza shop worker Hassan El Sabsabi, 24, should be jailed for a substantial period for funding US citizen Abedallah Karram's passage to Syria and for supporting him after he arrived.
Karram asked El Sabsabi for money after the Melbourne man told him he wanted to "do jihad" in 2013, court documents show.
El Sabsabi said he was not able to fight with his body "so in (SIC) going to do my best to fight with my wealth", a transcript shows.
El Sabsabi, of Seabrook, has pleaded guilty to two charges of preparing for incursions into foreign states for the purposes of engaging in hostile activities.
Between June 2013 and September 2014 he sent almost $16,000 to Karram in 11 transactions after the two met online in 2012, the Victorian Supreme Court heard on Friday.
Karram travelled to Syria on August 13, 2013 and the following month used Facebook to publish a photo of himself kneeling next to a mutilated corpse, the crown says.
El Sabsabi saved the photo to his mobile phone then in March last year posted it on Facebook as part of a collage of Karram, which also included one of him holding a rifle, according to the crown summary.
Another Facebook photo tendered shows Karram kneeling and smiling by a body next to a pool of blood.
Defence barrister Stewart Bayles told the pre-sentence hearing El Sabsabi was neither an extremist, nor anti-western, and that his behaviour had to be viewed in the context of the situation in Syria at the time.
El Sabsabi was opposed to the regime of Bashar El Assad in Syria, which Mr Bayles said had been widely condemned in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
The transcripts of conversations between the two men show El Sabsabi supported "world peace and the UN", Mr Bayles said.
"This is not a young man who is gratuitously expressing radical beliefs, radical ideology."
Mr Bayles told the court the community's understanding of groups such as IS and Jabhat Al-Nursa, which the men discussed, had changed since the period of offending.
"Jabhat Al-Nursa was not a declared organisation at the commencement of the offence period," Mr Bayles said.
He said El Sabsabi now realises the foolishness of what he did and should not be jailed.
Justice Lasry will sentence El Sabsabi at a later date.
Bail was extended.
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