Milanda Rout | October 23, 2008
MUSLIM convert Joseph Terrence Thomas has been found guilty of falsifying his Australian passport but was acquitted of accepting $US3500 and an airline ticket from terrorist group al-Qa'ida.
A Victorian Supreme Court jury today found the 35-year-old Melbourne man not guilty of accepting funds from a terrorist organisation after deliberations of just two days and a week-long trial.
But the jury did find Mr Thomas guilty of falsifying his passport after he put a fake Pakistani entry visa over the top of a Taliban visa he obtained to get into Afghanistan before the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Mr Thomas wept as the verdict was read and hugged family members.
He has been released on bail.
Prosecutors had argued the former taxi driver knowingly took an airline ticket and cash from senior al-Qa'ida member Kahled bin Attash while trying to get out of Pakistan in 2003.
But defence lawyers maintained Mr Thomas was desperate to get home and believed the money was a donation from Taliban-sympathetic families in Pakistan.
They also said he only altered his passport because he feared for his life and believed a Taliban government visa in the post September 11 world was a "one-way ticket" to Guantanamo Bay.
In a highly unusual trial, most of the evidence put forward by the prosecution against Mr Thomas was from Mr Thomas himself via a series of interviews he did with the ABC's Four Corners program that was broadcast in 2006.
It is the end of a long road for Mr Thomas who was first convicted of receiving funds from a terrorist organisation and holding a false passport in March 2006 and was jailed for a maximum of five years.
He was the first Australian to be convicted under the nation's anti-terrorism laws introduced after September 11.
But his conviction was later quashed by the Court of Appeal, which ruled that an Australian Federal Police interview with Mr Thomas in Pakistan in 2003 was conducted under duress and was therefore inadmissible.
Nine months later, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, armed with the ABC interview detailing his exploits in Afghanistan, went back to the Court of Appeal and was granted a retrial.
Lawyers for the 35-year-old made unsuccessful trips to the Court of Appeal and the High Court to stop the retrial going ahead.
During last week's trial, the jury was shown more than two hours of footage on a wide-screen television above the witness box as a subdued Mr Thomas watched from the dock.
The court had heard the 35-year-old recount to ABC journalist Sally Neighbour how he went to Afghanistan in 2001 to fight for the Taliban in their civil war against the Northern Alliance.
Mr Thomas stated he met Osama bin Laden while training at the al-Qa'ida camp in Afghanistan but still maintained he didn't know it was a terrorism camp at the time.
"He (Bin Laden) was very polite and humble and shy," Mr Thomas said. "He seemed to float across the floor."
Counsel acting for Mr Thomas, Jim Kennan, stated throughout the trial that Mr Thomas was just trying to get home from a region that had changed dramatically after the September 11 attacks.
Mr Kennan said his client's actions were "the height of naivety" and believed the money was coming from local Pakistani families who were Taliban sympathises and wanted to help him get home.
"You may think he was a stupid naive young man to go and fight for the Taliban and try to stop the civil war," he told the jury. "But that is not an offence and it doesn't make him a member of al-Qa'ida."
Mr Kennan also said prosecution case was "riddled with doubts", based on speculation not inference and they did not have any hard evidence against his client.
"You are the ones with the power to do justice for Mr Thomas in this case," he told the jury last week.
MUSLIM convert Joseph Terrence Thomas has been found guilty of falsifying his Australian passport but was acquitted of accepting $US3500 and an airline ticket from terrorist group al-Qa'ida.
A Victorian Supreme Court jury today found the 35-year-old Melbourne man not guilty of accepting funds from a terrorist organisation after deliberations of just two days and a week-long trial.
But the jury did find Mr Thomas guilty of falsifying his passport after he put a fake Pakistani entry visa over the top of a Taliban visa he obtained to get into Afghanistan before the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Mr Thomas wept as the verdict was read and hugged family members.
He has been released on bail.
Prosecutors had argued the former taxi driver knowingly took an airline ticket and cash from senior al-Qa'ida member Kahled bin Attash while trying to get out of Pakistan in 2003.
But defence lawyers maintained Mr Thomas was desperate to get home and believed the money was a donation from Taliban-sympathetic families in Pakistan.
They also said he only altered his passport because he feared for his life and believed a Taliban government visa in the post September 11 world was a "one-way ticket" to Guantanamo Bay.
In a highly unusual trial, most of the evidence put forward by the prosecution against Mr Thomas was from Mr Thomas himself via a series of interviews he did with the ABC's Four Corners program that was broadcast in 2006.
It is the end of a long road for Mr Thomas who was first convicted of receiving funds from a terrorist organisation and holding a false passport in March 2006 and was jailed for a maximum of five years.
He was the first Australian to be convicted under the nation's anti-terrorism laws introduced after September 11.
But his conviction was later quashed by the Court of Appeal, which ruled that an Australian Federal Police interview with Mr Thomas in Pakistan in 2003 was conducted under duress and was therefore inadmissible.
Nine months later, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, armed with the ABC interview detailing his exploits in Afghanistan, went back to the Court of Appeal and was granted a retrial.
Lawyers for the 35-year-old made unsuccessful trips to the Court of Appeal and the High Court to stop the retrial going ahead.
During last week's trial, the jury was shown more than two hours of footage on a wide-screen television above the witness box as a subdued Mr Thomas watched from the dock.
The court had heard the 35-year-old recount to ABC journalist Sally Neighbour how he went to Afghanistan in 2001 to fight for the Taliban in their civil war against the Northern Alliance.
Mr Thomas stated he met Osama bin Laden while training at the al-Qa'ida camp in Afghanistan but still maintained he didn't know it was a terrorism camp at the time.
"He (Bin Laden) was very polite and humble and shy," Mr Thomas said. "He seemed to float across the floor."
Counsel acting for Mr Thomas, Jim Kennan, stated throughout the trial that Mr Thomas was just trying to get home from a region that had changed dramatically after the September 11 attacks.
Mr Kennan said his client's actions were "the height of naivety" and believed the money was coming from local Pakistani families who were Taliban sympathises and wanted to help him get home.
"You may think he was a stupid naive young man to go and fight for the Taliban and try to stop the civil war," he told the jury. "But that is not an offence and it doesn't make him a member of al-Qa'ida."
Mr Kennan also said prosecution case was "riddled with doubts", based on speculation not inference and they did not have any hard evidence against his client.
"You are the ones with the power to do justice for Mr Thomas in this case," he told the jury last week.
Source: The Australian
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