LAWYERS for terrorism suspect Jack Thomas will lodge an official complaint about a television quiz show question they say could prejudice his trial. Mr Thomas, charged with receiving financial support from al-Qa'ida, providing the group with resources or support to help carry out a terrorist attack and having a false passport, was the subject of a question on Monday's Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. On the program, a contestant answered a $1000 question that asked: "Suspected of associating with the terror network al-Qa'ida, Joseph Terrence Thomas, was dubbed what? a) Jihad Jack; b) Joe Blow; c) Terror Terry; or d) Thomas the Tank Buster." Thomas's solicitor, Rob Stary, said yesterday he would lodge a complaint with the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions this week. "I think it's completely inappropriate to trivialise the matter when court proceedings are well and truly in place," Mr Stary said. "These are serious charges, and my client is entitled to the presumption of innocence."
Thomas's brother, Les Thomas, said their grandmother, aged in her late 70s, watched as the question was aired. "My grandmother nearly choked on her biscuits when she saw it," Mr Thomas said. He said the contestant had asked host Eddie McGuire to lock his answer in, and McGuire said: "Apparently he's been locked in for quite a while." Mr Thomas said a reasonable person who heard the question about his brother "would come away with the idea he actually calls himself Jihad Jack, which was never the case". His brother had adopted the name Jihad, a word he understood to mean "spiritual striving", when he converted to Islam in 1996. "Jihad Jack is a nice piece of alliteration the media has come up with, and the whole connotation is of a mad bomber who is intent on causing death and destruction. "That's not the brother I have known all my life."
A spokeswoman for Nine said the program's producers stood by the question. "The information is very much in the public domain," the spokeswoman said. "It didn't refer to what Jack Thomas might have done, more so what he has been dubbed."