Musa Cerantonio

Robert "Musa" Cerantonio (born 28 January 1985) is a former ISIS propagandist who has been called perhaps "the most famous jihadist in Australia".

He attended a Catholic primary school, and Footscray City College for secondary education. The City College had an informal atmosphere and was "a very liberal school, influenced by the politics of socialism," according to Cerantonio. Cerantonio later enrolled at Victoria University, Australia where he studied communications and history. While at the university he was President of the Islamic Society. As a convert to Islam he lectured at conferences in Australia, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, India, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and the Philippines. He has authored dozens of articles on Islam. Journalist Graeme Wood, who has interviewed Cerantonio extensively, described him as a "neofundamentalist autodidact." He presented the shows "Ask the Sheikh" and "Our Legacy". His TV presentations became "increasingly political" as he gravitated toward advocating "the establishment of a caliphate controlled by a single absolute leader and run strictly according to Sharia. He was fired from Iqraa for refusal to abandon preaching for the revival of the caliphate, beaten by Iqraa station staff, and left Egypt in 2012.

Philippines 2012-June 2014 According to Wood Cerantonio's passion to establish the caliphate led him to the southern Philippines in 2013, where support for the idea was allegedly strong, and so it might be possible to establish a caliphate.

He fled to the Philippines under the pretext of visiting his brother. His brother was in Manila, but he traveled to Mindanao. While there, during fighting between the Philippine Army and the Moro National Liberation Front his apartment was bombed by warplanes. In February 2014, while in the Philippines, he married another convert to Islam, Joan Montayre, a 32 year old designer, and moved to an apartment in the Cebu province.

An April 2014 report by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization at King's College London, identified Cerantonio as one of the two most popular and influential clerics urging Muslims to immigrate to the Islamic State and wage jihad. Cerantonio's Facebook account in support of Islamic State had 12,000 followers when it was shut down in May 2014. He started his connection with ISIS translating its speeches and official documents into English around June 2014.

In mid-2014, Islamic State and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's declared the group had formed a new caliphate with al-Baghdadi as the new Caliph, and commanded all Muslims to pledge allegiance to al-Baghdadi and "make haste" to Syria to fight or help the jihad. While "ecstatic" over the announcement and urging his followers to obey the caliphate, (to the amusement of his critics), Cerantonio neither publicly pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi nor traveled to Syria. Publicly swearing allegiance to al-Baghdadi was a violation of Australian law (Cerantonio agrees it is compulsory for Muslims to swear allegiance to someone who meets the qualifications for a caliph, and that al-Baghdadi meets those qualifications, but will not say if he has sworn allegiance to him); and according to Cerantonio, he and his wife had difficulty immigrating.

Despite his efforts to stay offline and off the phone, in July 2014 Cerantonio was arrested in the central Philippines city of Lapu-Lapu for overstaying his visa and deported to Australia. Cerantonio claims he was denied access to a lawyer by Warden L’rev J. Del Cruz. "The warden was telling inmates not to talk to me because I was a terrorist,” he says. After two weeks in detention he was deported to Melbourne.

In September 2014, an open letter, known as the Letter to Baghdadi, addressed to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, was published. A theological refutation of the practices and ideology of the Islamic State, it was signed by dozens of Islamic scholars. Cerantonio condemned it as a "letter of ignorance and disbelief".

Australia May 2016 arrest - 'Tinnie plot' In 2016, acting detective Sgt Adam Foley said that according to worldwide intelligence services Cerantonio was the second or third most influential jihadist preacher in the world.

In May 2016, Cerantonio was arrested in Queensland (along with four others) as the "ringleader" of a plot to flee the country in a boat, and for "making preparations for incursions into foreign countries to engage in hostile activities." The group planned to sail 3500 km to the southern Philippines, "overthrow" the provincial government and "install Sharia Law". The members of the group planned to sail because they could not fly; they had had their passports cancelled "due to concerns they would become foreign fighters". Police alleged that the group towed a seven-metre boat 3,100 kilometers from Melbourne, and had planned to travel by sea on it to West Papua, (despite having no sailing experience) and finally to Syria, intending to join Islamic State. Later it was found they actually intended to stay in the southern Philippines to help militant Muslims overthrow the government there.

Graeme Wood mused, I tried to envision the improbable scene of five hairy mujahideen desperate not to look suspicious while hauling a deep sea fishing boat across the Outback. Did they want to get caught? After all they can now say they did what they could to reach the caliphate. And they will probably never have to leave Australia.

All those involved in the plot pled guilty and received prison sentences in February 2019. Thorne was sentenced to three years and ten months, but by then he had already served most of his minimum time. Dacre, Granata, and Kadir Kaya were each sentenced to four years in prison, three years non-parole period. Murat Kaya was sentenced to three years and eight months, two years and nine months non-parole.

Criminal conviction In May 2019, Cerantonio was sentenced to seven years in prison for his part in the 2016 plot. For his defense, his lawyer, Jarrod Williams, said that Musa "doesn’t always fit the profile of an Islamic extremist", as he enjoys music by the likes of AC/DC, Cold Chisel, Johnny Cash, Paul Simon and Rammstein.

In 2022, Cerantonio wrote to Graeme Wood from Port Phillip Prison and announced he had renounced both ISIS and Islam and become an atheist. He expressed regret for his support of ISIS and activity on their behalf, saying, "Seeing individuals dedicate themselves to tyrannical death cults led by suicidal maniacs is bad enough. Knowing that I may have contributed to their choices is terrible." In September 2021, the Murdoch-owned Herald Sun reported Cerantonio would soon be released from imprisonment but would be kept under surveillance.