Leith Marchant, serving a 32-year minimum sentence for the assassination-style murder of Nathan Treganna during a robbery in August 2002 at Lane Cove River Park, has adopted a hardline approach to Islam since his conversion.
Guided by his fanatical beliefs, 33-year-old Marchant rejects TV and radio and won't have either in his cell. He sleeps on a concrete bed without a mattress to demonstrate his piety. The main focus of his daily religious studies is martyrdom, Corrective Services Commissioner Ron Woodham said. "He tells people, quite openly, if he was out on the street, he'd be prepared to die for the cause," Mr Woodham said.
In November 1999, while serving seven years for armed robbery, Marchant broke out of Long Bay jail after prising apart iron bars but was recaptured a few days later.
Sentencing Marchant for murder in 2003, Justice Greg James said the accused had shown "ruthlessness and decisiveness" in shooting the victim in the head at point-blank range and labelled him "a person who is almost without prospect of redemption".
The picure at the link is scary, yet reminiscent of those toys where you use a magnet to arrange iron filings into beards. |