Intercepted phone calls played in court have revealed the moment two Australian men called their families to reveal they had secretly travelled to Syria, allegedly to join terrorist groups.
The calls are among hundreds of phone intercepts and text messages in the trial of Hamdi Alqudsi, 42, from St Helen's Park, who is charged with recruiting seven men to fight in Syria between June and November 2013. He has pleaded not guilty.
On Tuesday, the NSW Supreme Court heard a call between Mr Alqudsi and one of his alleged recruits, Mehmet Biber, who said he was in the Turkish border province of Hatay, waiting to be escorted into Syria.
"I spoke with my family and its chaos," Biber, from Merrylands, said. "They want to come visit us."
"They want to come to Syria?" Alqudsi asked. "Your parents found out the truth?"
"Nah, they don't know 100 per cent," he replied, adding that he told them he was in Turkey. He said his wife supported his decision but his parents had called the police.
"My entire family, they're weeping, going crazy," he said.
"One day they're going to kiss you," Mr Alqudsi replied. "The wave of volcano will soon stop erupting... It's just a wave."
Mr Alqudsi then spoke with the Merrylands-based wife of another alleged recruit, Caner Temel.
She cried as she said her husband left a letter for her under the pillow. She then called his parents to break the news. She told Mr Alqudsi she supported him but his family went "crazy" and called the police.
Mr Alqudsi told her she should "be his backbone" and to hide her support from the parents. "Act like you are upset, pissed off at him," he told her. "That's maybe a tactic you can use."
The plans to send four of the men into Syria almost failed dramatically when they were caught out by a Shiite war commander and handed over to police in Turkey, the court heard. However, they pretended to be tourists.
According to the phone intercepts, the men were supposed to be met by Kings Cross bouncer turned Islamic State recruiter Mohammad Ali Baryalei when they flew into Hatay on July 3, 2013.
Baryalei wasn't there when they arrived and they were met by an unknown man who turned out to be an enemy commander.
"We played [it] like [we were] on holidays," one of the men, Tyler Casey, told Mr Alqudsi later that night as they were holed up in a five-star hotel. "[We told the police] we just got caught up, we didn't know what we are doing."
"It was a good test," he said. "Allah saved us."
Earlier in the trial, Baryalei said he had watched people die in front of him and he was "over it". A bullet came so close to him in one battle that his ears were ringing, he said.
Casey and Temel were both killed in battle months later. Biber has since returned as has another man, Muhammad Musleh, who came back after two weeks because his father was angry.
Another man was prevented from departing Australia but the whereabouts of the others are unknown.
Mr Alqudsi's barrister, Scott Corrish, has told the jury that questions will be raised about his clients' intentions in the phone calls and the possibility the men may have been doing something else, such as humanitarian work.