On returning to Australia, leading Islamic cleric Sheikh Mansour Leghaei was discovered to be carrying a “jihad notebook.”

ASIO translated Mansour Leghaei’s notebook, which focuses on “infiltration, deception tactics, martyrdom and the euphoria of fighting a jihad outside one’s borders”.

Details of the notebook are contained in documents lodged in a Federal Court case brought by Sheik Leghaei to stop his deportation.

ASIO has twice assessed Sheik Leghaei, who runs an education centre and charity in suburban Sydney, as a risk to national security, leading to multiple visa cancellations. ASIO has interviewed the Iranian-born Shiite cleric at least three times since he arrived in Australia with his wife and children in 1994. During one interview, officers repeatedly asked him if he had spied on Iranian dissidents, students or opposition groups in Australia for the Iranian Government or its embassy. They also asked if he had met members of the Iranian Intelligence Service and about his knowledge of terrorist group Ahlul-Bait.

Sheik Leghaei denied any wrongdoing. His counsel has told the court the cleric was treated unfairly during those interviews because ASIO refused to explain why it was questioning him. Peter Hanks QC argued that the court should quash ASIO’s 2004 assessment against Sheik Leghaei or declare it void because of this lack of procedural fairness.

One section of the notebook, which customs officers photocopied after discovering it in his luggage at Sydney airport in 1996, asks: “With whom should a holy war be fought?

”The enemies of Islam are to be categorised under three headings: 1, the infidels who do not accept the Koran as the Book of Heaven. 2, the oppressive and the unjust and whoever takes up arms against the Prophet. 3, heathens living in the Islamic countries who have broken the agreement to pay tribute to the Muslims.“

Sheik Leghaei says in his affidavit that the notebook contains his handwritten notes from a textbook he read while a university student in Iran. The notebook relates to the former Iraqi regime’s invasion of Iran, he says. And ASIO’s translation from Farsi and Arabic into English was ”seriously flawed”.