"Jihad Jack " not guilty of taking al-Qaeda cash

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Melbourne man Jack Thomas has been found not guilty of receiving funds from al-Qaeda.
But Thomas, 35, was found guilty of possessing a falsified passport.
The 12-member Victorian Supreme Court jury reached their verdict after two days of deliberation.
Thomas, who had pleaded not guilty to both charges, appeared relieved as the verdicts were delivered.
Thomas had altered the visa for Afghanistan in his passport.
The verdict came after Thomas was retried on two charges for which he was originally convicted on February 26, 2006.

.However, those convictions were subsequently quashed by the Court of Appeal on August 18 the same year.

But after interviews Thomas gave to the ABC Four Corners program and The Age newspaper were broadcast and published, prosecutors sought and were granted a retrial in December 2006.

(snip)

Bin Attash approached Thomas claiming to have a message from Osama bin Laden that the terrorist leader wanted a "white boy'' to work for him in Australia, and that he, bin Attash, could offer $US10,000 immediately to anyone willing to carry out an attack.

Thomas travelled to Afghanistan in March 2001, originally with his wife and child, to train with the Taliban to fight in the civil war.

He ended up in an al-Qaeda camp but says he didn't know it was run by the terrorist group until he saw bin Laden at the camp for the first time, before September 11.

(snip)

Most of the evidence put before the trial came from the interviews between Thomas and ABC journalist Sally Neighbour in 2005 and with Fairfax Media journalist Ian Munro in early 2006.

Thomas told Neighbour that, when bin Laden visited the al-Qaeda camp, which he did on three occasions, there was a "festive" atmosphere.

Rocket-propelled grenades were launched into the sides of mountains, explosions and anti-aircraft fire clouded the air, bullets were fired.

Thomas observed the al-Qaeda leader was polite, humble and shy, and appeared to "float across the floor".

"He didn't like too many kisses. He didn't mind being hugged, but kisses he didn't like," Thomas said in the ABC interview, played to the court.

Thomas said that, on one occasion, bin Laden visited the camp and pronounced something "big" was going to happen.

At the time the camp trainees were being evacuated into the mountains every night and Thomas said they believed the "something big" was an attack on Afghanistan.

But Thomas said "in hindsight" bin Laden could have been referring to the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/thomas-cleared-of-t...