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MELBOURNE - As he hugged his crying mother in a Melbourne courtroom yesterday, Jack Thomas looked anything but a terrorist. More like a startled rabbit.
Thomas has been imprisoned and released three times - once in Pakistan and twice in Australia - since being captured in Pakistan in 2003.
Since having his conviction on terrorism charges quashed last August Thomas, 33, has also been living under a federal Government control order that stipulates who he can talk to and where he can go. Now he must face court again.
The same Appeal Court judges who set Thomas free in August, yesterday ruled that he should be tried again on charges of accepting money from al Qaeda and possessing a false Australian passport.
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions had sought the retrial following the publication on the ABC and in the Age newspaper of interviews given by Thomas that contained fresh evidence against him.
- AAP
