Musa Cerantonio


Robert "Musa" Cerantonio is an Australian. He was born into a Catholic family, however his family "weren't very practicing". He converted to Islam at the age of 17. Cerantonio is of Italian and Irish heritage. He has been arrested, deported once and jailed, in connection with his Islamic activism.

Early life

Cerantonio was born on 28 January 1985 in West Footscray, Melbourne, Australia to a Catholic Italian family of six. He has described his Christian upbringing as "Catholic by name only". "We weren’t very practising, and whilst we were Catholic by name, we didn’t go to church except on Christmas or Easter, or when someone died or was getting married," he said.
He attended a Catholic primary school as a child and did his secondary education at Footscray City College. It was according to Cerantonio, "a very liberal school, influenced by the politics of socialism."
In 2000, at 15, he visited the Vatican to strengthen his Christian faith, but was disappointed. "I began to question the role of the Pope in the Catholic Church…and saw people praying to a dead body. There was idol worship at the home of my faith…and I felt in my heart that this was not right."
In 2002, during the month of Ramadan and at age 17, Cerantonio converted to Islam. It came after two years of reading about Islam. In 2005 he visited Medina in Saudi Arabia.
Cerantonio later enrolled at Victoria University, Australia where he studied communications and history. While at the university he was President of the Islamic Society.

Islamic activism

After converting to Islam Cerantonio engaged in activism and preaching. He has 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.
In 2010, Cerantonio traveled to the Middle East to raise funds for a Melbourne community centre to be run by the Islamic Information and Services Network of Australasia. He had previously attended IISNA camps. After the trip, Cerantonio began receiving regular visits by ASIO.
In 2011, Cerantonio traveled to work in Egypt. He presented the shows "Ask the Sheikh" and "Our Legacy" broadcast by the Saudi Iqraa satellite network.
In October 2011, Cerantonio performed the Hajj, having previously done so in 2006. He spoke about the experience in a CNN documentary.
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.

Philippines 2012-June 2014

In 2012 Cerantonio was again approached by Australian Security Intelligence Organisation officers. After a few months, ASIO started pushing him for more information. According to Cerantonio, they ordered him "Tell us who’s up to no good, I know you know who they are." "We can make a lot of trouble for you based on those talks you give," An ASIO officer threatened to cancel Cerantonio’s passport should he not co-operate.
Cerantonio temporarily agreed with ASIO’s demands, but then 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 Joan Montayre, a 32 year old designer, and moved to an apartment in the Cebu province.
In June 2014, on Twitter Cerantonio claimed he was in Syria. He was branded by Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop as a fraud, “He said he was fighting in Syria and Iraq, but he was holed up in the Philippines.” Cerantonio says the tweet was posted to throw the police off the search. “I gave a friend access to my account, and the Australian Government knows I did not write that.”
In July 2014, Cerantonio was arrested in the central Philippines city of Lapu-Lapu and taken to Manila. 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 without charges.
In October 2014, Cerantonio condemned the Letter to Baghdadi as a "letter of ignorance and disbelief".

Australia May 2016 arrest - 'Tinnie plot'

In May 2016, Cerantonio was arrested in the Northern territory along with four others over an alleged plot to flee the country in a boat. The group was charged with "making preparations for incursions into foreign countries to engage in hostile activities." After his arrest Cerantonio was remanded in custody, with the trial delayed and expected in January 2018. The other four arrested were Paul Dacre, Anthony Granata, Kadir Kaya, and Shayden Thorne. Thorne is the brother of controversial Islamic preacher Junaid Thorne. A sixth man, Murat Kaya, brother of Kadir Kaya, was arrested separately at his Melbourne home. Police alleged that the group towed a seven-metre boat from Melbourne, and had planned to travel by sea on it to West Papua, the Philippines, 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. 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.

Released

Murat Kaya was released under a control order in late January 2020, and Shayden Thorne in early March 2020 under an interim control order.

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.