Background:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1223174305/165#165

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1183184822/33#33

For some reason I couldn't find much discussion of this case in other threads.

Joseph Thomas acquitted on al-Qa'ida charge but guilty of falsifying passport

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24540864-601,00.html

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, mouthing "thank you" towards the jury before hugging 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.

The devil is in the details. A bill of rights is going to help people like Thomas.

I think a bill of rights is a good idea.  We should have clearly defined lines the government cannot cross

Uncanny Valley wrote on Oct 26^th, 2008 at 11:40am:

Yairs, Yairs…

Like the almost daily running commentary we got from government ministers and Mick Keelty about Muhammed Haneef which prompted former National Crime Authority head (no less) Peter Faris QC to make this statement on July 17 2007

Quote:

Never mind that the AFP knew all these statements were incorrect by July 17… All complete fabrications, but fed to us almost daily from after July 2 until July 20.

On July 26, a no doubt embarrassed Peter Faris called for the resignations of Mick Keelty and DPP Director Damien Bugg.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Oct 26^th, 2008 at 2:10pm:


Mick Keelty is scum. The calculating, shiny bum, self serving type. He makes my skin crawl.

"Yeah the AFP isn't supposed to co operate with overseas law enforcement if it will likely result in the death penalty given to an Aussie citizen.

Yeah we could have arrested the Bali 9 in Australia b-b-b-but this is different. Don't ask me to explain properly or I will be forced to stamp my foot and pout. It's just different OK it just is."

Keelty has the blood of 9 people on his hands.

ps: Dr Haneef is still guilty.

pppps: He moaned and whinged and moaned and whinged about being let back into Australia. And his snake-in-the-grass-human-rights-lawyer moaned and whinged and moaned and whinged about his client being let back into Australia.

WHEN THE FACK ARE YOU GOING TO COME BACK THEN YOU LIAR???

Uncanny Valley wrote on Oct 26^th, 2008 at 2:23pm:

This is the product of the hate-o-rama that is the previous government's legacy.

An example of the hysteria that can be whipped up in Australia by our 'leaders'... something akin to the Chamberlain tragedy.

His lawyers did what lawyers should, they jealously defended him against false accusations.

Uncanny Valley wrote on Oct 26^th, 2008 at 10:34pm:

Seven easy steps eh?

Always the way...

The less you know the more you think you know and the easier the answer appears.

Have you thought maybe his wife doesn't want him to come back or she doesn't want to come herself?

Perhaps, due to her ignorance of Australian society, she thinks that a nation whose leaders can whip up terrorist hysteria (with no evidence of criminal activity) and continue the myth of culpability might just find a way to detain her husband again for nothing? Or worse... perhaps she fears some perverted false patriot might murder him.

A thread about Haneef:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1184426736