Before Mohammad Ali Baryalei came to be known as the most senior Australian member of Islamic State, he sobbed during a phone call from the Middle East as he asked: "Why would you want to live this rubbish for?"

A cache of intercepted telephone calls, the audio of which has now been released for broadcast, offers a glimpse into the experiences and personality of the man believed to have recruited dozens of Australian men to fight in Syria.

The calls were presented as evidence during the trial of Hamdi Alqudsi, who was on Tuesday found guilty of aiding men to fight in Syria's brutal civil war, but they were not able to be played outside the court until after the jury had delivered its verdict.

In one phone call with Alqudsi, made in June 2013, Baryalei explains that a bullet came so close to him it made his ears ring and describes how he saw his "commander" die.