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| Down Under |
| Thomas let Binny pay for return flight, given secret al-Qaeda contact info |
| 2006-02-20 |
| ACCUSED terrorist Joseph Terrence Thomas would not have been given a secret al-Qaeda phone number and email address unless he had agreed to be a sleeper agent for them in Australia, a court has been told. The 32-year-old Werribee man has pleaded not guilty in the Victorian Supreme Court to intentionally receiving funds and providing resources to al-Qaeda, and possessing a false passport. In his closing address today, Crown prosecutor Nicholas Robinson said the jury must decide whether Thomas received funds from al-Qaeda and provided himself as a resource to the organisation. He said whether or not Thomas pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, or was a member of the organisation, was irrelevant. Mr Robinson urged the jury to reject Thomas' denial in an Australian Federal Police (AFP) interview in March 2003 that he intended to act as an al-Qaeda sleeper. He said Thomas' claim that he was on a different "tram track" to al-Qaeda was inconsistent with his actions, such as spending two years as a fugitive in Pakistani safehouses frequented by al-Qaeda members. "If in fact he thought they were on the wrong tram track, if in fact he didn't hold their views, why did he stay with them?" Mr Robinson said. Thomas accepted $US3,500 ($A4,740) and a ticket back to Australia from an Osama bin Laden associate called Khaled bin Attash. He told the AFP that bin Attash said bin Laden needed a "white boy" to work for him in Australia, but he never intended to work for al-Qaeda or use the money for terrorism. He told police that bin Attash also gave him a secret email address and telephone number to contact upon his return home. "We say that bin Attash obviously wouldn't have given that number until he knew or had an agreement that the accused would go back (to Australia)," Mr Robinson said. "It is clear ... that the accused is saying to police that the ticket that was handed over by bin Attash was for the purpose of going back to Australia to carry out a task for al-Qaeda." During his opening address, defence counsel Lex Lasry, QC, said his client may be "naive" and "stupid" but he definitely was not a terrorist. Today, Mr Robinson said the evidence suggested Thomas was a trusted al-Qaeda confidant and had sophisticated dealings with senior members of the group. He said Thomas was so trusted that he was privy to a conversation about a plot to bring down a jet carrying Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf with a rocket launcher. Mr Robinson said Thomas offered to do work such as obtaining false passports for the group twice and asked one al-Qaeda member for a house. He said when Thomas met American Yahya Goba, 29, at the al-Qaeda run Al Farooq camp in Afghanistan in 2001, he allowed himself to be introduced as an Irishman and used the pseudonym Abu Khair. "He is not naive, he is not stupid and these acts were intentional," Mr Robinson said. Mr Lasry said the defence would not call any evidence. Mr Robinson will continue his closing address in the trial presided over by Justice Philip Cummins tomorrow. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |