Former Canberra Rebels president Ali Bilal jailed over threatening, menacing phone calls

"It's OK," Ali Hassan Bilal, 50, repeatedly told a woman wailing in the corner of the ACT Magistrates Court before prison guards led him away on Tuesday morning.

The former Canberra Rebels president, who also served as the outlaw motorcycle gang's national sergeant-at-arms, had been sentenced moments earlier to 13 months in jail.

Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker ordered that the Wollogorang resident serve four months behind bars before the remainder of the sentence is suspended.

Bilal, who runs a dog racing and kennel business, pleaded guilty earlier this year to five charges of using a carriage service to either menace or threaten serious harm.

He committed the offences in calls he made between January and August 2021, unaware police had tapped his phone and were listening to every word.

The first of Bilal's expletive-laden tirades was directed towards an employee Ms Walker described as a "mentee", who had been "allowed to live as part of his family".

This victim had apparently upset Bilal by using illicit drugs and having a relationship with another man's girlfriend, and the 50-year-old screamed what the magistrate described as "serious and violent" threats.

"I'm gonna stomp on your f---in' head now," Bilal roared at the man, warning the victim he would be in hospital for a week before threatening to shoot him.

Ms Walker, who listened to an audio recording of this call during a sentence hearing last month, said Bilal had intended to cause fear and likely succeeded.

"The tone was aggressive, verging on apoplectic," she said on Tuesday.

Bilal, who claimed to be persuading the recipients of his rants to "change their behaviour", subsequently shifted his focus to a man he believed to be enabling the first victim's immoral conduct.

This victim told Bilal he was "bloody shitting myself" and wondered what was going on as the 50-year-old, who was leading the Rebels at the time, bellowed about how he would "teach [him] a f---in' lesson".

Bilal told the man he was "outside in the car park", which Ms Walker said amounted to the offender "asserting an immediate threat" that would have inspired fear.

The next target of the former gangster's rage was a woman, whose parents enlisted the services of Bilal, "a problem solver" and "go-to" person, to speak to her about her drug use.

Ms Walker said Bilal's brand of problem-solving involved him making another highly aggressive phone call to the woman, telling her he wanted someone else dead and that he was going to "f---in' kill" him.

"I'm gonna f--- him, his mother, his father," Bilal told the woman.

"I'm not gonna leave anybody tonight. Watch me."

The final person in Bilal's crosshairs was a man the 50-year-old said was destined for "a f---in' hole".

"We'll deal with you in public, in front of everybody, to finally make a statement in this town," he told the final victim.

"I'm happy to go to jail for it. Let's not f--- around anymore, bro.

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"You see, I was taught as a kid that little Rottweiler that you raise and you pat and you feed and clean its arse and you make sure it doesn't get wet and you make sure it's got somewhere to live, the day it bites you, have to shoot it in the head 'cause it's just going to keep biting you."

Bilal's willingness to go to serve jail time over what Ms Walker described as "extensive rants", characterised by "manipulative aggression, utilised to bend the recipient to [his] will", is now set to be tested.

"You're going to prison today," the magistrate told Bilal as a number of his surprised supporters crossed the courtroom to comfort the most distressed among them, who angrily tossed some tissues to the floor.

Ms Walker said multiple character referees had attested to Bilal's "gentlemanly qualities", but their words were at odds with the 50-year-old's own as he used his reputation as a feared gangster to intimidate people.

She said if his story about trying to change the behaviour of his victims for the better was true, he would still have been trying "to assert some perverted sense of moral authority".

Bilal, who once changed his name to Tony Soprano, will be freed from jail in December and placed on an 18-month recognisance release order.

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