Bangladeshi student sentenced to 42 years in jail for terror attack

A Bangladeshi student found guilty of engaging in a terrorist act after stabbing her homestay landlord in an Islamic State-inspired attack has been sentenced to 42 years in jail.

Momena Shoma attacked Roger Singaravelu with a kitchen knife while he was having an afternoon nap in his Mill Park home, in Melbourne's north, in February 2018.

Shoma, who wore a black niqab showing only her eyes at the sentencing hearing in Victoria state's supreme court, shouted "Allahu akbar" as she attacked Singaravelu, who survived and was also present at the hearing, the court heard.

His five-year-old daughter witnessed the attack and still suffers from fear, trauma and an inability to trust people.

Shoma pleaded guilty to engaging in a terrorist act for the advancing of a political, religious or ideological cause, namely violent jihad.

"Your deeds and words, and the intentions accompanying them, are chilling," said judge Lesley Taylor in handing down the sentence of 42 years, with a non-parole period of 31 years and six months. She faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Taylor said her actions "sent ripples of horror throughout the Australian community".

"But they do not make you a martyr. They do not make you a beacon of Islam... They make you an undistinguished criminal," she said.

Shoma had been granted a scholarship to study at La Trobe University, but Supreme Court Justice Lesley Taylor said Shoma's only intention in coming to Australia was to carry out the "chilling" terrorist attack.

"You sought notoriety," Justice Taylor said.

The court previously heard Shoma carried out the attack to "trigger the west" and attempted to fatally stab Singaravelu in the neck because he was "vulnerable" and an "easy target".

Six days before the attack, Shoma had searched the internet looking for night-vision goggles so she could see in the dark, and later purchased them for $10, the court heard.

She became radicalised in 2013 and was joyous at the rise of the Islamic State caliphate in Syria and Iraq a year later.

On the morning of the attack she had downloaded a video from Islamic State's media centre, Al Hayat, entitled Flames of War.