A former Qantas cabin cleaner jailed for producing a do-it-yourself terrorism manual has walked free on Sunday after 12 years behind bars.
Belal Saadallah Khazaal, then 39, was found guilty in 2008 in the NSW Supreme Court of making a document connected with assistance in a terrorist act.
The 110-page book, compiled in September 2003 and titled Provisions Of The Rules of Jihad, was described as a "practical guide to achieving martyrdom" and published online in Arabic.
The book included advice on techniques of assassination and listed targets for assassination, such as holders of public office in a number of countries including Australia.
Mr Khazaal, the former editor of the Call to Islam magazine, was jailed for 12 years, a term which expired on Sunday. He has been denied parole three times.
Details on the timing and whereabouts of his release were not confirmed, though video footage showed Mr Khazaal leaving Sydney's Silverwater Correctional Complex on Sunday under heavy surveillance.
Australian Federal Police last week applied to the Federal Court for an interim control order on Mr Khazaal, which imposes obligations, prohibitions and restrictions on a released person to protect the public from a terrorist act.
Justice Michael Wigney on Wednesday issued the order but its conditions and his reasons have not been publicly released. An interim order is the first step in the making of a final order which will be argued and decided at a later date.
In 2011, Mr Khazaal was released on bail after the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal allowed a challenge to his conviction and ordered a retrial.
But he was returned to custody in 2012 when the High Court reinstated his original conviction.
Mr Khazaal, a Lebanese-Australian dual national who lived in the western Sydney suburb of Lakemba until his imprisonment, has never denied compiling Provisions Of The Rules of Jihad from online material but said it was never intended to incite terrorist acts.
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