*AUSTRALIAN COURT CONVICTS*

SYDNEY : The wife of an Islamic State group recruiter gave the militants' single-finger salute outside a Sydney court on Friday after becoming the first person convicted-

Under a new state law criminalising the refusal to stand for a judge.

Moutia Elzahed, 50, definitely remained seated with her arms folded in the Downing Centre Local Court dressed in a black niqab, gown and gloves after magistrate Carolyn Huntsman delivered the landmark decision.

She was found guilty of nine charges of disrespectful behaviour during previous court hearings she was involved in. She will be sentenced on June 15.

New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, introduced the law in 2016 after several Muslim defendants refused to stand for judges on religious grounds.

The magistrate found Elizahed had repeatedly and intentionally flouted the established court convention in 2016 when she failed to rise for District Court Judge Audrey Balla.

Elzahed said she only stood for Allah, but Huntsman found no evidence she had acted on genuine religious belief.

''No evidence was presented that the teachings of Islam compel this conduct,'' the magistrate said.

In 2016, Elzahed had been trying to sue the state and federal governments on claims of police violence and wrongful imprisonment over a rain on her Sydney home two years earlier. She was ultimately unsuccessful.

Closed circuit TV showed Elzahed failed to rise in court nine times, with each offence carrying a maximum jail term of 14 days and a 1,100 Australian dollar -$828} fine.

Elzahed is married to Sydney resident Hamdi Alqudsi, who was sentenced in 2016 to eight years in prison for helping young Australians reach Syria to fight for extremists. [AP]