A MAGISTRATE has refused a bail application by Melbourne terror suspect "Jihad" Jack Thomas. Melbourne Magistrates' Court was told the former taxi driver and Muslim convert trained with the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda in Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks. The court also has been told that its leader, Osama bin Laden, wanted someone to conduct surveillance operations in Australia. Joseph Terrence Thomas, 31, was arrested last Thursday by officers from the Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police joint counter terrorism team at his Werribee home, in Melbourne's western suburbs. Thomas is charged with receiving financial support from al-Qaeda, providing al-Qaeda with resources or support to help them carry out a terrorist act and having a false passport.
Prosecutor Richard Maidment, SC, told the court Thomas trained at an al-Qaeda military camp in Afghanistan in mid-2001 for three months and while there "saw at close quarters Osama bin Laden". Mr Maidment said Thomas made full admissions in an interview with the AFP while he was being held by authorities in Pakistan last year. After attending the training camp, Thomas then travelled to Pakistan where he stayed at al-Qaeda safe houses and discussed a plan to break out a Guantanamo Bay inmate, the court was told. A bin Laden associate told him the al-Qaeda leader wanted someone in Australia to conduct surveillance operations of military installations and provided him with $3500 and an airline ticket to Australia, the court was told. The court was also told Thomas and his Indonesian wife were associates of Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir and he had met Bashir in Malaysia in March 2000. Defence lawyer Robert Stary told the court Bashir and Thomas' wife were childhood friends.
| Funny, none of my childhood friends grew up to be murdering terrorists. |
He said Thomas did not have a lawyer present when he made admissions when interviewed by AFP police in Pakistan. He said Thomas was not a flight risk because he had family ties and was working in Melbourne and the prosecution case against him was weak. Magistrate Ian Gray said Thomas faced "extremely serious charges" and exceptional circumstances needed to be demonstrated for him to be released on bail.
| "Baliff! Jug this man! And wrap some foil around the cork!" |
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