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August 18, 2006

Australia: Jihad Jack Walks Free

Today, news from the BBC, The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age reports that Joseph Terrence Thomas, or "Jihad Jack", the former Melbourne taxi driver, has been released from jail, with his sentence quashed.

On the steps of the courthouse, his lawyer said that Jihad Jack had been suffering from psychiatric problems for the past few months which had left him "debilitated". Prosecutors announced that they would be seeking a retrial.

Thomas had been the first person to be convicted under Australia's new terrorism laws, and the decision of the Court of Appeal in Victoria today appears to have put the effectiveness of this legislation into doubt.

To recap on the case, from our previous postings - on February 26 this year, Joseph Thomas was convicted of gaining money from the terror group Al Qaeda and using a falsified passport. On a supplementary charge, of providing the group with resources in 2002 and 2003, he was found not guilty.

He had been arrested in Karachi in January 2003. He had confessed to interrogators in Pakistan that he had gone to Afghanistan in 2001 to fight with the Taliban.

He attended the al-Farooq training camp, where individuals were trained in military tactics, before being sent to fight "infidels". He had fought for about a week "on the front line".

He had been given US $3,500 (Aus $4,750) to fly back to Australia by an al-Qaeda member, one Khaled bin Attash. Attash is believed to have been involved in the attack against USS Cole in Aden in 2000. Attash was apprehended by Pakistani authorities in May 2003.

In Pakistan, he was placed in detention for five months, and he claimed he was mistreated and threatened with harm while being interrogated by an American official known only as "Joe". Joe had threatened to crush Jack's testicles in a vice, and said that he could have his wife Maryati (an Indonesian) in Australia harmed, by having her breasts placed in a vice. He also claimed that he had been assaulted by a Pakistani interrogator. A hood was placed over his head at one stage, and he was strangled. He was interviewed in Pakistan by Australian Federal Police (AFP) in March 2003, after being in detention for several weeks.

On March 31 he was sentenced at Melbourne in the Supreme Court of Victoria, to a sentence of not more than five years. He was told by Judge Philip Cummins that he should spend a period of no less than two years behind bars.

On June 24, Jack was assaulted by another prisoner in Barwon Prison, Lara. His lawyer, Rob Stary, said his client had been taken to Thomas Embling Hospital, and from there to the psychiatric unit of Port Phillip Prison. Stary claimed his client had suffered a nervous breakdown, and was appealing against the court's conviction.

On July 24, the Victorian Court of Appeal heard from queen's counsel Lex Lasry that while in Pakistani custody, Thomas had believed he had to "cooperate" with his interrogators. Thomas had believed that failure to do so would have meant that he would be sent to Guantanamo or held in Pakistan indefinitely.

Amnesty International had tried to become involved in the appeal, but their application was rejected by the appeal justices, Chris Maxwell, Frank Vincent and Peter Buchanan. Amnesty had reasoned that Thomas' case, involving detention and questioning in Pakistan, came under international law.

On July 5, before the appeal hearing began, Victoria's Supreme Court released suppressed data, which included 1,000 pages of documents, closed-court evidence and interviews with officials which took place in Pakistan.

Amongst these, an AFP case report from March 2003 stated: "He personally knew, had relationships with, was asked to carry out acts by, lived with, was supported by, was provided money by, discussed terrorist acts with, was provided false documents by and was present at demonstrations of explosives with many al-Qaeda members over a period of 18 months....He was tasked by Khaled bin Attash to return to Australia to identify military targets as bin Laden needed a white person in Australia."

The details of the AFP March 2003 report had large sections still blacked out for security reasons. The report relates to an interview conducted on February 27 between Thomas and six AFP men. They asked him: "How many groups are working in Australia? How many people probably are members of al-Qaeda from Australia?" Thomas' answer is blacked out.

The evidence gained in Pakistan, upon which the entire case and subsequent conviction had rested, was today ruled as "unadmissable" by the Appeals Court. He had not had a lawyer present during his interrogation.

Lasry said today: "The interview was not voluntary because the applicant was not answering questions on the basis of free choice."

However, even though Jihad Jack has been set free, the details of an interview he gave to ABC television were not made under any duress. The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions stated that the comments from this interview should be made as an argument with which to prosecute him. Chris Maxwell, Frank Vincent and Peter Buchanan agreed to hear further submissions in this regard.

Mark Taft, SC, for Thomas, said the request to use the ABC television interview as evidence was "bloody-minded".

An edited transcript of Thomas' inerview with ABC reporter Sally Neighbour, which was broadcast on a Four Corners report on February 27 this year, can be found here, from the Australian.

As Jihad Jack met with his Indonesian wife Maryati and his three kids outside the court (pictured), and also with his parents, who have had to sell the home they have lived in for 33 years to pay for the ongoing costs of their son's defence, questions are being raised about the effectiveness of the law. But for Jihad Jack, once the hugs were over, there was another priority to be attended to. He told reporters: "Got to go and pray, the light's going down."

Chris Merritt, in a commentary in the Australian states: "When the legal system allows a mate of Osama bin Laden to walk free in Melbourne, something is terribly wrong. Australians should rightly be outraged at this decision. Allowing Jack Thomas to re-enter civilised society - even temporarily - is ludicrous."

Another commentary from the same paper states: In Australia, the AFP is faced with the more acute dilemma of trying to balance public safety with the need to secure convictions. When it discovers a terrorist plot, does it risk public safety and sit on the evidence until it compiles enough to guarantee a conviction? Or does it make early arrests to foil the plot knowing that it may not have enough evidence to secure a conviction?

These questions will need to be addressed in many more such cases, and not just in Australia. With Rashid Rauf currently in custody in Pakistan and under interrogation, will his evidence be deemed admissable in the upcoming trial of the 24 suspects in UK custody from the Operation Overt surveillance operation? These suspects have not yet been charged, and proof of the "al Qaeda link" is dependent in great part upon the testimony of Rashid Rauf.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 18, 2006 5:16 PM

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