Fed: A land less free, but are we any safer?

AAP General News (Australia)
08-31-2006
Fed: A land less free, but are we any safer?

By Doug Conway, Senior Correspondent

SYDNEY, Aug 31 AAP - Should Australia be less free and more safe, or more free and less safe?

Terrorism is forcing authorities to choose one at the expense of the other, and the
landmark case of "Jihad" Jack Thomas has given Australians their starkest reminder of
the Howard government's choice - less free and hopefully safer.

Mr Thomas, for example, is a free man who is not really free at all.

He has no convictions against his name, and faces no charges, yet he is not free to
leave his Melbourne home between midnight and 5am.

He is not free to continue the beach holiday he was enjoying with his family in eastern Victoria.

He is not free to use any telephone or internet service provider not approved by federal police.

He is not free to leave Australia without permission, and must report to a police station
three times a week.

He is not free to contact anyone he chooses, at least not if they happen to be members
of a proscribed terrorist group.

He is specifically not free to contact terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, a requirement
which the magistrate who granted it later described as farcical.

Jack Thomas had no idea any of these restrictions were being placed on him until police
turned up to enforce them.

If he breaches them he can be jailed for up to five years.

His freedoms - the freedoms most Australians take for granted - have been curtailed
not because of anything he has done, but because of what authorities suspect he might
do.

The Muslim convert this week became the first Australian subjected to so-called "control
orders" which are part of the Howard government's tough new anti-terrorism laws.

The former taxi driver was found guilty in February of receiving funds from al-Qaeda
and holding a false passport, although the jury cleared him of two counts of intentionally
providing resources to al-Qaeda.

On August 18 an appeal court quashed the convictions and overturned Thomas' five year
jail sentence.

He had 10 days of freedom - the sort of freedom most citizens understand - before he
made legal history and entered the new grey area where he is partially free, a suspect
without a charge.

Courts can grant control orders if it's found there are "reasonable grounds" they will
substantially help prevent a terrorist attack, or if there are reasonable grounds to suspect
a person has given or received training from a terrorist group.

Civil libertarians say control orders fly in the face of the cherished presumption
of innocence supposedly at the heart of Australia's legal system.

They maintain that every single erosion of individual freedom brings Big Brother ever
closer and takes Australia further down the path towards a police state.

Others argue that infringements on freedom are the price that must be paid to combat
the heinous evil of terrorism.

They say a government would be derelict in its duty if it took no action to monitor
and control someone who has had some association with a terrorist group.

"Control orders are about protecting the Australian community," said Attorney-General
Philip Ruddock, who signed the Thomas application.

"They don't mean you are punished, they don't mean you are locked away.

"They mean some controls are put on your behaviour where it is reasonably believed
that that will protect the community."

"You wouldn't need control orders if you could rely on the criminal justice system
to provide ongoing protection."

That is what the justice system apparently failed to do, if Australia's first control
order is any indication.

Victoria's appeals court ruled inadmissible Thomas's 2003 confession that led to the
convictions against him.

Thomas had been denied access to a lawyer during an involuntary interview with federal
police in Pakistan, the court found.

Prosecutors plan to seek a retrial, arguing that Thomas later made the same admissions
in an interview with ABC television's Four Corners program.

The federal magistrate who granted the control order accepted police submissions that
Thomas's links with "extremists such as (alleged Jemaah Islamiah spiritual leader) Abu
Bakar Bashir, some of which are through his wife, may expose and exploit Mr Thomas's vulnerabilities".

Thomas's family maintains, however, that the only link his Indonesian-born wife Maryati
has with Bashir is that she went to school with his wife.

Federal magistrate Graham Mowbray, who granted the control order, later blasted the
federal government for including the name of Osama bin Laden, who Mr Thomas met in Afghanistan
five years ago, on a list of people he is banned from contacting.

As the federal government sought to extend the order, a process adjourned until September
11, Mr Mowbray said: "In my view it makes the order look somewhat silly.

"It makes it look almost a bit farcical, and this is a very serious proceeding."

Mr Thomas' lawyer Lex Lasry, QC, said the names on the list also included 13 people
who were either dead or currently in custody at America's Guantanamo Bay military prison
in Cuba.

Mr Mowbray also criticised the way Mr Thomas was forced to return immediately from
a holiday to comply with the order.

"If I had known the circumstances, I may have reviewed the orders I made," he said.

Some commentators argue that police would have been wiser to place Mr Thomas under
covert surveillance, not only to monitor any activity deemed suspicious but to garner
further information on any contacts.

By so spectacularly advertising the fact that he is under suspicion, the argument runs,
they have ruined any chance of flushing out extra information.

Free or not, Jack Thomas now has a neon sign hanging over him.

AAP dc/sp/cjh/sd

KEYWORD: THOMAS (AAP NEWS ANALYSIS)

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