SSridhar wrote:BijuShet, thanks. I have seen both references. I still do not have info on when this guy was arrested, the exact date.
Name is slightly different but this must be the guy, detained on January 4, 2003 at karachi airport.
Jack Thomas goes free after six-year battle against terrorism charges
October 24, 2008
FIVE years and nine months since he was arrested at Karachi airport in Pakistan, Jack Thomas yesterday walked out of court a free man.
Arrested in two countries, interrogated, tortured, convicted, acquitted and retried, the Muslim convert finally got the verdict he had been praying for.
A Supreme Court jury, after two days of deliberations, found him not guilty of receiving cash and a plane ticket home from al-Qaeda.
"Thank you," the 35-year-old mouthed to the jury.
After legal wrangling that has cost taxpayers millions of dollars, the only charge that stuck related to Thomas falsifying his Australian passport to remove a Taliban visa in a desperate bid to return home.
But Thomas is unlikely to spend any more time in jail. The passport charge carries a maximum two-year sentence, but he has already spent five months behind bars in Pakistan and nine months in Australia.
He was arrested at his Werribee home four years ago, and it has been more than 2½ years since he was found guilty by a Supreme Court jury; the first man convicted under the Howard government's terror laws.
Two years ago, he was acquitted by the Court of Appeal, which granted a retrial just four months later.
Prosecutors convinced the appeal court that interviews given by Thomas to The Age and ABC's Four Corners constituted new evidence.
During the Four Corners interview, Thomas admitted accepting a plane ticket and $US3500 cash from senior al-Qaeda figure Khaled bin Attash in a bid to return to Australia from Pakistan.
He had travelled to the al-Farooq training camp in Afghanistan in 2001 with the intention of fighting for the Taliban in its war with the Northern Alliance. He said he only realised it was controlled by the "very polite and humble and shy" Osama bin Laden when he came to visit.
He spent only a week at the front line. As he fled after the fall of Kabul, he was plucked from a truck by an al-Qaeda member who said it was not safe to return to Australia and helped him cross the border.
He spent 13 months in safe houses in Pakistan before accepting the ticket and cash from bin Attash. Thomas told Age journalist Ian Munro they were arranged by Pakistani well-wishers sympathetic to the Taliban, and bin Attash had "hijacked the situation".
He had a Taliban visa removed from his passport, he said, because he regarded it as "a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay". The jury did not accept that Thomas was in an "emergency" situation when he tampered with his passport, despite evidence he was tortured by Pakistani authorities during the five months he was detained.
Solicitor Rob Stary — who has represented Thomas since his 2003 capture but could not act for him in the retrial because he could have been called as a witness — said there were mixed emotions after the verdict, because he felt aggrieved about the conduct of the Commonwealth and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in the case.
He echoed Thomas' former barrister Lex Lasry, QC, who said at the first trial it had to be about more than "securing a trophy in the cabinet of terrorist prosecutions".
"I think the authorities need to be very careful because what's happening in these failed prosecutions, all it does is erode public confidence in the system," Mr Stary said.
He said he laughed out loud when prosecutor Richard Maidment, SC, suggested during a bail application by Thomas that al-Qaeda was a well-resourced organisation that could help him bust out of Barwon Prison.
"That's the sort of … hysteria we've had to contend with," he said. "That's why we gave the Four Corners interview. We had to get out … a picture of Jack Thomas that represented more truly what he was like."
The retrial, based on media interviews given freely by Thomas and published after his first trial, raised important issues for journalism.
Sally Neighbour, whose Four Corners interview with Thomas formed most of the evidence against him, said the experience had made her acutely aware of the potential legal consequences of her work.
"It was extremely discomforting to have my story used as the basis for Jack Thomas' retrial, particularly given that the authorities had failed to obtain a lawful conviction using conventional means," she said.
"… The Crown only relied on the Four Corners interview because the AFP's own interview with Thomas in Pakistan was ruled inadmissible and 'contrary to Australian law'."
Jim Kennan, SC, who acted for Thomas in the retrial, said Thomas and his family intended to quietly celebrate the "satisfactory and inevitable conclusion" of their ordeal.
"He has been acquitted of all terrorist-related charges and obviously that's a matter of great satisfaction to him," he said.
Mr Stary thought Thomas, who suffered a breakdown in his high-security prison cell in 2006, would never recover from the past six years.
It remains to be seen whether prosecutors will appeal. Asked whether his client intended to give any public response to the verdict, Mr Kennan's response was a firm "No".
THOMAS' LONG WALK TO FREEDOM
¦March 23, 2001 Travels to Pakistan with wife and daughter.
¦April 2001 Enters military training camp in Afghanistan to prepare to fight for the Taliban.
¦Nov 19, 2001 Thomas's wife and daughter flee to Pakistan as Taliban collapses. He remains briefly in Afghanistan, then goes into hiding in Pakistan.
¦
January 4, 2003 Detained at Karachi Airport as he prepares to return to Australia.
¦June 6, 2003 After five months in custody without charge, Thomas returns to Australia
¦November 18, 2004 Arrested at his Werribee home and charged with terrorism-related offences.
¦February 10, 2006 Found guilty of receiving funds from a terrorist organisation and possessing a false passport. Cleared of providing resources to a terrorist organisation.
¦February 27, 2006 Four Corners airs interview with Thomas about Pakistan and Afghanistan.
¦August 18, 2006 Court of Appeal quashes Thomas' convictions, ruling that police interview was inadmissible.
¦December 20, 2006 Court of Appeal approves an application by the DPP for a retrial based on the Four Corners interview.
¦June 16, 2008 Court of Appeal rejects challenge to the retrial.
¦October 23, 2008 Thomas cleared of receiving funds from a terrorist organisation, convicted of possessing a falsified passport.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/jack- ... -57h3.html
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