Pip Hinman
Rob Stary, defence lawyer for Jack Thomas, believes the Australian government has victimised his client because it wanted a "home grown" terrorist to test out its so-called anti-terror laws.
Stary told an August 25 public meeting in Sydney, organised by the Stop the War Coalition, that Thomas, who converted to Islam in the late 1990s, was religiously motivated to go to Afghanistan to help its reconstruction following the expulsion of the then Soviet Union. He went with his Indonesian-born partner and their child.
Thomas trained at a Taliban camp, al-Farooq, although the Australian authorities and corporate media persist in describing it as an "al Qaeda" camp. "It suits them to use these terms interchangeably", Stary said, adding, "Whatever we think of the Taliban, it was the government of Afghanistan at that time".
Thomas had only been in Afghanistan for two months when he, along with 20,000 other foreigners, were asked to join the war against the Northern Alliance. Stary said that Thomas did not know at the time that the Northern Alliance was backed by the United States; he thought he was fighting the Russians.
Following the 9/11 terror attacks on the US in 2001, Thomas and his family, along with many other Australians, fled to Pakistan. Thomas was arrested in Karachi in early 2003 and held by Pakistan's secret service.
He was tortured and told to cooperate with Australian authorities if he wanted to return home. "The authorities did not charge him with anything because he had not committed an offence under any Australian law", Stary said. He was subsequently interviewed by ASIO and the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
In July 2002, the Howard government introduced its first set of "anti-terror" laws. Stary believes that when the case against former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mamdouh Habib collapsed, and David Hicks was locked up by the US, the Australian government started looking for a "home-grown" terrorist on which to test its laws.
In March 2003, Pakistani authorities said Thomas could return to Australia as he had committed no crime, but he had to wait another three months while Canberra stalled. He was finally repatriated in June that year.
Some 17 months after being reunited with his family in Melbourne, working three jobs, enjoying a new baby and purchasing a house, Thomas was charged by the AFP in March 2004 with offences that could only have been committed in Australia. It was later revealed that he had been placed under electronic surveillance since returning home.
"The Pakistanis had told the Australians that Thomas had not committed offences against Pakistan, and then handed him over", Stary said. "We thought he couldn't possibly be charged, because we knew that the confessions extracted by the US and Pakistani intelligence in January 2003 were done under duress. He was not just hooded, he was shackled and leg-ironed, and told that his wife would be raped and his family would be punished."
Stary wrote to many senior Coalition politicians asking for an explanation, but heard nothing back. "The only evidence against Thomas was this so-called record of interview, which is completely equivocal at best", Stary said.
Stary could not get bail for his client because a bi-partisan push had made it harder for terror suspects to obtain bail. Thomas was put into "protective custody", which Stary said meant being shackled and held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. Thomas was allowed to exercise in a "dog box", and had no physical contact with his family.
"The prosecution argued that Jack was an al Qaeda terrorist, a sleeper cell waiting to be activated", Stary said, "but it had been 17 months and he had done nothing". The prosecution then argued that the more dormant he is, the more dangerous he is because he may lull authorities into a false sense of security. They then said al Qaeda is a very well resourced organisation with the capacity to break someone out of prison with a helicopter. I laughed because I didn't think it was a serious proposition."
At Thomas' conviction on February 26, Stary said, a helicopter buzzing overhead, counter-terrorism units with sniffer dogs in the court room and the confiscation of electronic devices from people entering the court in case they tried to detonate a bomb were all used to maximum dramatic effect. Thomas was convicted with falsifying a passport and receiving "support" — a ticket home from Pakistan and US$3500 — from a terrorist organisation.
Three months later, as part of a legal appeal, the prosecution was asked if it had any other evidence against Thomas, aside from the one interview conducted in Pakistan. It didn't and the charges were quashed on August 18. "It's good that Jack Thomas had his charges quashed", Stary said, "but he should never have been imprisoned in the first place."