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A Sydney man convicted over the assault of a gay couple in the CBD has been released from custody after successfully appealing his sentence.

20-year-old Yaqoob Benshabir – whose uncle is Khaled Sharrouf, one of Australia’s most well-known ISIS terrorists – pleaded guilty over an attack on a gay couple at Wynyard Walk in February 2024.

Benshabir was originally sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment with a five-month non-parole period, before successfully appealing the severity of the sentence in April this year.

The assault occurred after Benshabir and a group of other young men encountered the couple in Sydney’s CBD. The group reportedly shouted homophobic slurs at the couple after seeing them kiss, before one of the men was punched repeatedly. A co-offender allegedly filmed the incident and later shared the footage online.

Benshabir was released on a conditional release order after spending approximately eight months in custody. State prosecutors had also sought supervision orders that would have given authorities additional powers to monitor and manage him following his release, however those applications were not granted at that stage of proceedings.

According to , court hearings about the supervision order application heard that police allegedly located material including videos, images and messages said to express support for Islamic State.

Benshabir was charged by the Australian Federal Police with a violent extremism-related offence after investigators examined material allegedly located on his phone. However, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions later withdrew that charge. Benshabir currently faces no terrorism or extremism charges.

Those allegations have not resulted in any current terrorism conviction,, and an application for an extended supervision order remains before the courts.

During聽 the Supreme Court proceedings in April, the court heard evidence from a forensic psychologist who assessed Benshabir and聽warned that, without ongoing supervision, his risk profile appeared to be increasing.

Attacks on LGBTQIA+ people inspired by extremism growing

The case has drawn renewed attention to a broader pattern of attacks targeting gay and bisexual men after they were lured through dating and social networking apps.

An ABC investigation found scores of LGBTQIA+ people, particularly gay and bisexual men, had been targeted in attacks from gay dating apps since 2023, with at least 64 people charged in NSW and Victoria alone.

The investigation reported that some of these attacks involved extremist influences, including a network linked to Islamic State sympathisers, while other incidents were connected to far-right and misogynistic online communities.

The ABC reported that several young people convicted over assaults on gay and bisexual teenagers in Sydney had connections to a wider extremist network that later became the focus of counter-terrorism investigations. Researchers interviewed by the broadcaster warned that LGBTQIA+ Australians remain among the groups most frequently targeted by violent extremists.

The attacks contributed to growing calls for stronger protections for LGBTQIA+ people, and were one of the factors that prompted the NSW Government to introduce tougher hate crime laws. The laws expand so-called “post and boast” offences, which refers to attacks films and posted online, like Benshabir’s.